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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Presented   by  Dr.  T,  L  .Po\^^oin  . 
Section  


VdX' 


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OUR    BIBLE 

HOW    IT    HAS   COME   TO    US 


OUR    BIBLE 


HOW    IT    HAS    COME    TO    US 


BY 


THE    REV.   R.   T.  TALBOT   M.A. 

HONORARY   CANON    OF    DURHAM    CATHEDRAL   AND    LECTURER 

IN    CHURCH    HISTORY   AND   DOCTRINE   IN    THE   DIOCESES 

OF    DURHAM,    RIPON,   AND   NEWCASTLE 


NEW    YORK 
THOMAS     WHITTAKER 

2  &  3   BIBLE   HOUSE 
1894 


PREFACE 

The  following  papers  were   originally   contributed 

to    the    ''Sunday    Magazine.''      The    author    has 

simply  sought  to  make  some   of  the  facts   in    the 

history  of    the   descent    of  the  Bible  accessible     to 

those  who  have  more  desire   to   know  than   leisure 

to    read;    and  if  the  book  can    make   no  pretence 

to  original  research,  it  may  at  least  claim  the  merit 

of  fairly  representing  the  conclusions  of  the  latest 

scholarship. 

R.  T.  r. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    THE   BIBLE   BEFORE   THE    DAYS  OF   PRINTING     ...        9 


II.    ENGLISH   TRANSLATORS   UP   TO   THE  TIME  OF  WYCLIFFE       35 


III.    ENGLISH      TRANSLATORS      UP     TO     THE      SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 57 


IV.    THE   LAST  TRANSLATION 8l 

V.    THE  COLLECTION   OF   THE   BOOKS   OF  THE   BIBLE       .  .    103 


THE   BIBLE   BEFORE   THE   DAYS 
OF  PRINTING 


THE   BIBLE   BEFORE   THE   DAYS 
OF   PRINTING 


x^M  HE  subject  of  our  first  paper  is  the  history 
Lm\  of  the  manuscripts  of  the  Bible.  As 
it  is  always  well  to  begin  quite  at  the 
beginning  of  a  subject,  we  will  ask — What  does 
the  word  **  manuscript  "  mean?  It  means  that 
which  is  written  by  hand.  The  word  manuscript 
refers  us  back  beyond  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  introduces  us  to  the  region  of  time  wherein 
the  printer  and  his  art  were  unknown.  It  is 
only  450  years  ago  that  printing  with  movable 
types  was  discovered.  The  Dutch  claim  the 
honour  of  discovery  for  their  countryman  Lau- 
rens Coster,  and  the  Germans  for  their  own 
Johann     Gutenberg.       The     question     may     be 


OUR  BIBLE 


amicably  settled  by  allowing  a  simultaneous 
discovery  on  the  part  of  the  Dutchman  and 
the  German.  At  all  events,  it  was  just  about 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  that  what  an 
old  German  writer  calls  the  "  almost  divine 
benefit "  of  the  printing-press  was  conferred 
upon  mankind.  A  generation  later,  in  1476, 
our  own  William  Caxton  set  up  his  press, 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Abbot  Esteney,  in 
the  almonry  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  invention  of  printing  brought  about  a 
peaceful,  but  complete  revolution.  Knowledge 
stepped  forth  from  the  cloister  and  entered  into 
the  market-place.  Manuscripts  had  been  for  the 
few,  the  printed  page  would  be  for  the  many. 
No  Franchise  Bill  has  ever  placed  so  much 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  many  as  did  the 
invention  of  printing.  For  knowledge  is  power, 
and  the  pathway  to  knowledge,  which  hitherto  in 
the  days  of  manuscripts  had  been  open  only  to 
the  few,  was  now  by  printing  being  opened  to 
all  alike. 

The  Bible,  like  all  other  ancient  books,  was 
transmitted  in  manuscripts  until  the  age  of 
printing.      Let    us    try    and    gather   together    a 


HOW  IF  HAS  COME  TO   US  13 

few  facts  which  will  help  us  to  understand  how 
it  fared  with  the  Bible  in  the  days  of  manu- 
scripts. 

First  as  to  the  Old  Testament  Hebrew 
manuscripts.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  none  of 
those  which  have  come  into  our  hands  are  very 
ancient.  The  bulk  of  those  we  have  are  not 
much  older  than  the  date  of  our  Norman 
Conquest,  and  there  are  only  a  few  which  are  a 
little  older  still.  Various  explanations  have  been 
given  to  account  for  the  comparatively  modern 
date  of  the  manuscripts  which  we  possess. 

One  of  these  is  as  follows.  The  Hebrew 
manuscripts  had  become  faulty  in  the  lapse  of 
centuries,  and  various  attempts  were  made  to 
correct  the  text.  The  most  famous  revision 
of  the  text  was  executed  in  the  Jewish  schools 
at  Tiberias,  on  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  at  some  time 
subsequent  to  the  sixth  Christian  century. 
The  various  existing  types  of  text  were  then 
collected  and  compared  by  Jewish  scholars.  A 
corrected  text  was  issued  which,  under  the  name 
of  the  Massoretic  text,  became  the  standard 
authoritative  text.  It  is  probable  that  the  earlier 
and  less   correct  copies   passed   out   of  use   and 


14 


OUR  BIBLE 


were  destroyed.  When  a  corrected  text  had 
been  given  to  the  world,  there  was  no  use  in 
preserving  an  imperfect  text ;  indeed,  the  sooner 
the  latter  was  put  out  of  the  way  the  better  for 
everybody. 

Another  explanation  is  that  the  Hebrew 
manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testament  were  never 
in  circulation  as  were  the  manuscripts  of  the 
New  Testament.  There  were  pubHc  copies  in 
use  in  the  synagogues  and  elsewhere,  but  few 
were  in  private  hands.  Moreover,  owing  to  the 
peculiar  reverence  of  the  Jews  for  the  written 
word  of  Scripture,  when  a  public  copy  could  no 
longer  be  used,  it  was  solemnly  immured  in  the 
synagogue  wall.  Manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment were,  therefore,  always  few  in  number, 
and  of  those  few  as  each  in  turn  became  past 
service,  it  was  put  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
subsequent  antiquarian  research.  Nobody,  of 
course,  ever  doubts  that  there  must  have  been 
manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testament  existing  in 
each  century  before  the  eleventh  century  a.d.  ; 
and  stretching  backwards  in  a  long  chain  to  our 
Lord's  day,  and  further  backwards  again.  In 
support    of  this    we   may   call    to    remembrance 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US 


the  interesting  history  of  a  translation  of  the 
Old  Testament  which  was  made  about  two 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  This  was 
the  translation  into  Greek  called  the  Septuagint 
translation  or  translation  of  the  Seventy. 

The  way  the  name  arose  was  as  follows. 
Long  after  the  translation  became  current,  a 
story  of  its  origin  was  invented  to  give  it  an 
added  renown.  It  was  said  that  one  of  the 
Ptolemies  who  reigned  in  Egypt  was  anxious 
to  have  a  copy  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek, 
the  language  chiefly  spoken  in  his  capital  city, 
Alexandria.  This  book  was  destined  for  a 
place  in  the  great  library  of  the  Alexandrian 
Museum,  of  which  the  Ptolemies  were  munificent 
patrons.  Seventy  men  were  sent  from  Jerusalem 
to  Alexandria,  and  provided  with  all  the  requisite 
materials.  The  scholars  were  shut  up  in  seventy 
separate  cells  on  the  island  of  Pharos  in  the 
Alexandrian  harbour,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
famous  old-world  lighthouse.  Their  labours 
over,  the  Jewish  doctors  were  Hberated,  and  it 
was  then  discovered  that  each  translator,  although 
he  had  worked  independently,  had  used  the  very 
same  words  as  the  rest   of  his  fellows,  and  that 


1 6  OUR  BIBLE 


a  perfect  unanimity  of  expression  ran  through 
the  work  of  all.  Such  is  the  legend  which,  in 
spite  of  its  unhistorical  character,  we  must  needs 
remember,  because  it  accounts  for  the  name 
Septuagint  (meaning  ^'  seventy "),  the  name  of 
the  earliest  translation  of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  real  facts  of  the  case  are  these.  When 
Alexandria,  the  memorial  city  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  was  founded  about  three  centuries  before 
the  time  of  Christ  a  determined  effort  was  made, 
in  pursuance  of  the  policy  of  Alexander,  to 
bring  representatives  of  various  nationalities 
together  into  one  cosmopolitan  city.  Hither 
came  a  considerable  colony  of  Jews,  who  took 
firm  root  and  found,  as  elsewhere,  among  a 
Gentile  population,  a  magnificent  field  for  the 
exercise  of  their  peculiar  commercial  genius. 
Living  in  a  city  where  Greek  was  generally 
spoken,  they  would  perforce  come  to  use  Greek 
in  their  dealings  with  their  neighbours,  and 
their  native  tongue  would  fall  into  disuse.  Liv- 
ing also  among  idolaters,  the  Jews  would  find 
themselves  often  called  upon  to  give  a  reason 
for  their  abstinence  from  idolatry.  'What  more 
natural  than  that   a   translation   of  the   Hebrew 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  17 

Scripture  into  their  adopted  language,  Greek, 
should  have  been  called  for  by  this  colony  of 
Israelites  ?  The  translation  appears  to  have 
been  done  bit  by  bit  between  the  third  and 
second  century.  Some  parts  of  the  work  are 
better  done  than  others.  The  best  translated 
portion  is  the  Pentateuch. 

It  must  of  course  be  remembered  that  we 
have  no  manuscripts  of  the  Septuagint  existing 
now  older  than  the  fourth  century  A.d.  ;  but 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  the  statement 
that  the  original  manuscripts  belonged  to  a 
period  not  earlier  than  the  second  century  b.c, 
and  we  may  believe  that  the  text  of  the  Septua- 
gint has  not  undergone  any  substantial  alteration 
between  that  time  and  the  time  of  the  earliest 
existing  copy.  If  we  look  for  a  moment  at  the 
text  of  the  Septuagint,  it  does  not  present  us 
with  a  narrative  precisely  the  same  as  that 
which  we  have  in  our  existing  Hebrew  manu- 
script, but  it  is  sufficiently  like  to  make  us  feel 
that  there  must  have  been  Hebrew  manuscripts 
at  least  two  centuries  before  the  time  of  Christ, 
of  the  same  general  character  and  telling  the 
same  history  in  substance  as   do   those   Hebrew 

B 


i8  OUR  BIBLE 


manuscripts  of  a  much  later  date  which  are 
in  our  possession. 

Thus  it  will  appear  that  the  Septuagint 
enables  us  to  build  a  bridge  from  the  eleventh 
century  a.d.  to  the  second  century  b.c,  across 
which  the  substance  of  Old  Testament  history 
travels  safely.  If  the  manuscripts  of  the 
Old  Testament  have  not  been  corrupted  in 
any  really  important  degree  during  that  long 
period,  we  may  reasonably  suppose  that  the 
Old  Testament  manuscripts  prior  to  the  second 
century  B.C.  enjoyed  a  similar  immunity.  How 
much  farther  back  we  may  place  the  first 
manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testament  we  can- 
not say  with  certainty.  The  question  is  too 
intricate  and  too  technical  for  us  to  deal  with 
here. 

It  is,  however,  worth  recording  that  the 
accuracy  of  the  historical  statements  of  the 
Old  Testament  receive  a  great  deal  of  confirma- 
tion from  the  independent  witness  of  heathen 
monuments.  Professor  Say ce  has  said,  **Where- 
ever  the  Biblical  history  comes  into  contact  with 
that  of  its  powerful  neighbours,  and  this  can 
be   tested    by    contemporaneous    monuments    of 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  19 


Egypt  and   Assyria-Babylonia,    it    is    confirmed 
even  in  the  smallest  details." 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  manuscripts  of  the 
New  Testament — i.e.,  copies  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  original  tongue — viz.,  Greek.  There 
are  already  discovered  close  upon  eighteen 
hundred  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament, 
in  whole  or  part.  This  large  mass  of  manuscript 
evidence  is  assigned  to  very  various  dates. 
Some  of  it  is  as  old  as  the  fourth  century 
of  our  era,  and  some  of  it  as  late  as  the 
time  of  printing.  The  older  manuscripts  are 
called  Uncials,  and  the  more  modern,  Cursives. 
The  Uncials  get  their  name  from  the  style  of 
lettering  in  vogue  up  to  about  the  eighth 
century.  This  lettering  was  of  a  large  kind, 
and  all  the  letters  were  formed  the  same  in 
size ;  as  the  letters  were  about  an  inch  long 
(in  Latin,  icncia  =  inch),  the  manuscripts  in  which 
this  lettering  is  found  are  called  Uncials.  The 
more  modern  manuscripts  exhibit  a  different 
kind  of  lettering  which  goes  by  the  name  of 
cursive,  or  running-hand  writing,  and  the  manu- 
scripts themselves  take  the  generic  name  of 
Cursives. 


OUR  BIBLE 


The  manuscripts  most  sought  after  and  most 
highly  valued  are  those  copied  nearest  to  the 
Apostohc  period.  These  are  Uncial  manuscripts, 
and  the  three  most  important  belong  to  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  But  sometimes  a 
comparatively  modern  Cursive,  which  nevertheless 
may  have  been  copied  from  an  early  Uncial  now 
lost,  ranks  equal  in  value  with  an  old  Uncial. 
The  three  oldest  Uncials,  curiously  enough, 
belong  to  the  three  great  divisions  of  Christendom, 
— viz.,  Anglican,  Roman  and  Greek.  The  youngest 
of  these  three  seniors  is  Codex  A,  commonly 
called  the  Alexandrian  manuscript.  It  was 
copied  by  some  scribe  in  the  fifth  century.  In 
the  year  1628,  it  was  presented  by  Cyril  Lucar, 
the  patriarch  of  Constantinople,  to  Charles  I. 
It  is  now  the  property  of  the  British  nation, 
and  reposes  in  the  home  of  many  national 
treasures,  the  British  Museum.  Along  with 
the  New  Testament  is  bound  up  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  famous 
Septuagint.  The  manuscript  is  not  complete  ; 
there  are  ten  leaves  missing  from  the  Old,  and 
thirty  from  the  New  Testament.  Codex  B,  a 
manuscript  of  the    New    Testament,    belonging 


/ 


7/0 1 r  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  21 

to  the  fourth  century,  has  lain  for  the  last  five 
hundred  years  in  the  Papal  residence  at  Rome, 
called  the  Vatican  Palace,  and  hence  is  known 
as  the  Vatican  manuscript.  It  is  a  volume  of 
over  seven  hundred  leaves  of  the  finest  vellum, 
about  a  foot  square.  Part  of  the  Greek  trans- 
lation of  the  Old  Testament  has  been  lost,  and 
there  is  none  of  the  New  Testament  left  after 
Hebrews  ix.  14. 

Codex  Aleph,  called  the  Sinaitic  manu- 
script, was  discovered  in  1859  by  the  Ger- 
man scholar.  Dr.  Tischendorf,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Mount  Sinai.  The  story  of  its 
finding  is  a  veritable  romance  of  history.  In 
1844,  Dr  Tischendorf  was  travelling  in  the 
East,  on  the  look  out  for  rare  and  precious 
manuscripts.  In  the  May  of  that  year,  he 
c^me  to  the  convent  of  St.  Catherine,  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Sinai.  Here  at  the  foot  of 
that  mountain,  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  Old  Testament,  he  was  to  find  the  most 
complete  copy  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
convent  was  inhabited  by  monks  belonging 
to  the  Greek  Church.  These  monks  were 
the   degenerate  descendants   of  that  noble   race 


22  OUR  BIBLE 


of  monks  of  an  earlier  date,  who  had  rendered 
such  signal  service  to  Biblical  knowledge. 
Tischendorf  noticed  in  the  convent  hall  a 
basket  of  parchments,  and  he  was  told  that 
two  heaps  of  similar  old  manuscripts  had 
already  fed  the  fire.  Looking  into  the  basket 
the  German  scholar  discovered  several  sheets 
of  a  copy  of  the  Septuagint  of  an  extremely 
ancient  character.  He  was  allowed  to  take 
forty  sheets,  but  when  he  unwarily  expressed 
his  delight,  and  pressed  for  more  material 
of  the  same  kind,  he  aroused  the  envious 
suspicions  of  the  monks,  and  met  with  a 
stubborn  refusal.  Tischendorf  came  home  to 
Germany,  and  acquainted  the  literary  world 
with  his  *'  find."  He  spoke  only  in  a 
general  way  about  the  whereabouts  of  the 
place  where  he  had  found  so  much,  and 
hoped  some  day  to  find  still  more.  He 
wished  to  keep  his  secret  to  himself,  and  so 
he  said  vaguely  that  "somewhere  in  the 
East "  was  the  scene  of  his  discovery.  There- 
upon the  English  Government  sent  out  experts 
to  search  in  the  East  for  manuscripts,  but  at 
length  they  returned    home  empty-handed,   and 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  23 

Tischendorf  was  relieved  to  think  that  no 
one  had  forestalled  him.  For  fifteen  long 
years  the  German  scholar  tried  to  put  himself 
into  a  position  from  which  he  could  success- 
fully assail  the  selfish  cupidity  of  the  monks 
of  Mount  Sinai.  At  length,  in  1859,  having 
obtained  the  patronage  of  the  Czar  Alexander, 
he  revisited  the  monastery.  He  came,  armed 
with  an  imperial  order  from  the  temporal 
head  of  the  Greek  Church,  which  the 
Doctor  thought  would  carry  weight  with  the 
Greek  monks.  But  he  was  mistaken.  The 
monks  remained  unmoved,  and  Tischendorf 
seemed  still  far  enough  off  from  the  attainment 
of  his  cherished  hope.  It  was  the  evening 
before  his  departure,  and  he  walked  with  the 
steward  of  the  convent  in  the  grounds.  The 
monk  called  him  into  his  cell  to  partake  of 
some  refreshment.  When  the  two  were 
together  and  the  door  was  closed — ^^  I,  too," 
said  the  steward,  ^'have  read  a  copy  of  that 
Septuagint."  With  these  words  he  took  down 
a  bundle  wrapped  in  red  cloth  and  laid  it  upon 
the  table.  When  the  parcel  was  uncovered, 
lo !    and    behold,    there     were    the     very    frag- 


24  OUR  BIBLE 


ments  that  he  had  only  seen  for  a  moment 
fifteen  years  before,  other  parts  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  Greek  translation,  some  of 
the  Apocryphal  books,  and  the  whole  New 
Testament.  This  time  the  doctor  carefully 
concealed  his  intense  interest  and  excite- 
ment. He  carelessly  asked  that  he  might 
inspect  the  volume  more  at  leisure  in  his 
bedroom.  ''  There,  by  myself,"  says  Tischen- 
dorf,  "  I  gave  way  to  transports  of  joy.  I 
knew  that  I  had  in  my  hand  one  of  the 
most  precious  Biblical  treasures  in  existence, 
a  document  whose  age  and  importance  ex- 
ceeded that  of  any  I  had  ever  seen,  after 
twenty  years'  study  of  the  subject."  At  last, 
by  the  Emperor  of  Russia's  influence,  the 
manuscript  was  brought  to  the  Imperial 
Library  at  St.  Petersburg.  Facsimiles  of  it 
can  be  seen  in  all  the  chief  libraries  of 
Europe.  The  age  of  this  manuscript  is 
generally  supposed  to  be  about  the  same  as 
that  of  the  Vatican — i.e.,  about  the  fourth 
century. 

It    is     a  natural   question   to  ask.   What   has 
become    of   the    manuscripts  of   the   New  Tes- 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  25 


tament  before  the  fourth  century  ?  There  is 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Vatican 
and  Sinaitic  manuscripts  are  only  descendants 
of  a  considerable  line  of  New  Testament 
manuscripts  stretching  back  to  Apostolic  times. 
But  at  present  we  do  not  know  of  any 
manuscript  which  represents  the  text  of  the 
New  Testament  in  the  intervening  period 
between  the  first  and  the  fourth  century. 
It  may  at  first  sight  seem  very  strange  that 
the  manuscripts  of  the  earlier  period  have 
not  been  preserved.  But  we  must  take  some 
things  into  account.  Probably  the  earlier 
copies  of  the  New  Testament  were  written 
upon  papyrus,  a  material  notoriously  liable  to 
fall  to  pieces  in  course  of  time,  unless 
preserved  with  extraordinary  care.  There  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  earlier  generations 
of  Christians  looked  upon  their  manuscripts  in 
the  light  of  possible  evidences  and  witnesses 
to  the  truth  of  Christianity  to  be  used  by  a 
later  generation.  As  soon  as  copies  had  had 
their  day  they  were  recopied,  and  then  the 
older  copy  naturally  disappeared.  It  would 
not   be  out  of   place   to  recall  the  fact  that  the 


26  OUR  BIBLE 


first  three  centuries  being  centuries  during 
which  the  Church  was  persecuted  were  not  well 
calculated  to  preserve  such  perishable  material 
as  manuscripts.  One  of  the  objects  of  the 
persecutors  was  to  burn  up  Christian  manu- 
scripts. Gildas,  a  British  historian,  talks 
about  the  piles  of  manuscripts  which  were 
burned  in  British  towns  during  persecutions 
of  the  third  century,  and  one  who  was  in 
another  part  of  the  world,  living  at  the  very 
time  in  question,  the  historian  Eusebius,  bears 
witness  from  his  own  observation  of  this  very 
practice.  We  know  that  weak  and  cowardly 
Christians  earned  the  title  of  traditores — 
traitors — because  they  gave  up  the  manu- 
scripts which  their  brethen  used  in  order  to 
gain  exemption  from  punishment.  This  must 
be  taken  into  account  along  with  other  facts 
as  helping  to  supply  a  reason  for  what  at  first 
sight  seems  a  strange  lack  of  manuscripts  of 
the  New  Testament  earlier  than  the  fourth 
century.  By  comparison  with  other  ancient 
books  the  wealth  of  manuscript  evidence  for 
the  New  Testament  is  stupendous.  The  great 
histories    of    antiquity  have    their   text    founded 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  27 

upon  such  few  and  such  late  manuscripts  that 
we  may  fairly  say  that,  in  comparison  with 
them,  the  Bible  is  founded  upon  a  rock.  Of 
Herodotus  there  are  only  fifteen  manuscripts 
and  none  older  than  the  tenth  century  a.d. 
The  oldest  manuscript  of  Thucydides  is  of  the 
eleventh  century.  The  first  six  books  of  the 
Annals  of  Tacitus  are  only  known  to  us 
through  a  single  manuscript  which  came  to 
light  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  which  is 
far  removed  from  the  days  of  Tacitus.  Thus 
has  time  dealt  with  the  precious  works  of 
Greece  and  Rome ;  who  will  not  regard  with 
wonder  and  thankfulness  the  sight  of  one 
work  of  a  remote  antiquity  which  has  escaped 
the  destroyer's  hand  to  such  a  marvellous 
extent,  and  has  witnesses  to  its  text  very 
many,  and  not  a  few  very  ancient  ? 

But  to  the  foregoing  something  further  may 
be  added.  It  may  be  said,  "Well,  the  case  for 
the  New  Testament  may  not  be  so  desperate 
as  for  some  of  the  classical  histories,  but  we 
want  some  more  definite  assurance  about  the 
text  of  the  New  Testament  than  this.  Is 
there    any   indication   of    manuscripts  similar  in 


OUR  BIBLE 


general  character  to  those  which  we  possess  of 
the  fourth  century,  existing  in  previous 
centuries  nearer  the  ApostoHc  period  ?  The 
answer  is,  "  Yes,  there  are  indications."  In 
the  second  century  translations  of  the  New 
Testament  were  made  into  Latin,  Coptic,  and 
Syriac.  No  doubt  the  text  of  these  versions 
has  suffered  a  little  by  transcription,  but  we 
may  take  them  in  their  present  form  as  fairly 
representing  the  original  Latin  and  other 
versions  which  were  undoubtedly  made  in  the 
second  century.  These  versions  tell  us  sub- 
stantially the  same  story  as  our  manuscripts 
of  the  fourth  century  ;  and,  therefore,  they  carry 
us  back  two  centuries  behind  our  Sinaitic  and 
Vatican  texts  to  a  time  when  translations  were 
made  from  manuscripts  of  a  generally  similar 
character.  Indications,  moreover,  are  not  want- 
ing which  reveal  to  a  trained  eye  that  the 
second  century  versions  must  have  been  trans- 
lated from  manuscripts  which  even  at  that 
early  time  were  not  new.  but  had  come  of 
a  line  of  manuscripts  of  which  they  may 
well  have  been  descendants,  with  an  ancestry 
of      three      generations      back,     making     them 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  29 

representative  of  the  text  of  the  Apostolic 
age. 

Apart  from  this  line  of  evidence  is  another 
which  makes  use  of  the  frequent  Scriptural 
quotations  in  the  early  Christian  Fathers.  The 
quotations  of  the  Fathers  of  the  second  and 
third  centuries  from  manuscripts  extant  in  their 
days  though  not  in  ours,  often  supply  us  with 
valuable  confirmatory  evidence  as  to  the  ex- 
istence in  a  previous  period  of  a  type  of  text 
substantially  like  that  of  the  fourth  century. 

The  Bible  as  we  hold  it  in  our  hand  to-day 
is  a  book  that  we  know  has  come  down  to  us 
through  ages  in  which  we  find  it  at  first  hard 
to  believe  that  it  can  have  remained  uncorrupted. 
We  look  more  carefully  and  we  find  springing 
up  on  all  sides  in  remote  centuries  witnesses 
direct  and  indirect  to  its  freedom  from  textual 
error  in  any  point  of  real  importance.  It  has, 
of  course,  suffered  in  some  minor  and  un- 
important details  ;  but  even  here  very  often  a 
skilled  workman  can  see  what  the  original 
pattern  was  and  restore  it.  The  book  comes 
to  us  through  the  centuries  Hke  some  knight 
of  old  making   his   way  through   the  fight.      His 


OUR  BIBLE 


y 


shield  is  dinted,  his  sword  notched,  his  breast- 
plate beaten,  his  helmet  scarred,  but  the  man 
within  is  as  full  of  life  as  when  he  went  into 
the  battle. 

So  it  is  with  the  Bible.  It  bears  upon  it  the 
marks  of  the  relentless  hand  of  Time  and  of 
his  ministers.  But  those  marks  are  upon  the 
outside  casque,  not  upon  the  inward  spiritual 
being.  The  life  of  the  book  is  still  unimpaired, 
and  it  is  still  instinct  with  a  ^'  quickening 
spirit." 

There  are  two  points  about  manuscript  work 
which  we  ought  to  notice  :  (i)  the  slowness  of  it 
and  (2)  the  necessary  inaccuracy  of  it.  The  first 
point  will  be  well  understood  by  taking  an  illus- 
tration. At  Ferrara,  a  town  in  the  north  of  Italy, 
there  is  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  Old  Testament. 
A  note  at  the  close  proclaims  the  copyist  to 
have  been  one  **  Nicodemus  the  stranger."  It 
is  he  himself  who  informs  us  that  he  began 
his  task  on  June  8,  1334,  and  finished  it  in 
the  same  year,  July  15,  "working  very  hard." 
Nicodemus  evidently  felt  proud  of  his  work. 
To  copy  the  whole  Old  Testament  in  five  weeks 
was  indeed  a  tour  de  force.      But    how  painfully 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US 


slow  is  the  quickest  piece  of  handwriting 
compared  with  the  performances  of  the  printing- 
press.  And  now  we  may  notice  the  second 
point.  Not  only  is  printing  a  much  quicker, 
but  it  is  also  a  much  more  accurate  method 
of  reproducing  written  matter.  The  press  is 
certainly  capable  of  mistakes,  and  there  are 
printer's  errors  as  well  as  clerical  errors.  For 
instance,  a  printed  Bible  has  a  curious  error  in 
Psalm  cxix.,  which  makes  the  writer  exclaim  : 
'*  Printers  have  persecuted  me  without  a  cause  "  ; 
and,  again,  it  is  in  a  printed  Bible  of  1653  that 
the  omission  of  a  small  but  important  word 
causes  us  to  read  the  startling  statement  : 
*'  Know  ye  not  that  the  unrighteous  shall  inherit 
the  Kingdom  01  God  ?  "  Yet,  in  carefully  edited 
books,  printer's  errors  are  the  exception,  and 
not  the  rule  ;  and,  moreover,  there  is  no  chance 
of  fresh  errors  coming  in  by  the  multiplication  of 
copies.  But  the  method  of  making  manuscripts 
opens  the  door  to  many  kinds  of  errors,  and  the 
oftener  copies  are  made,  the  greater  is  the 
chance  of  the  multiplication  of  errors. 

Before    we    consider    this   point    farther,    let 
us  say  something  about   the  human   instrument 


V 


32  OUR  BIBLE 


who  is  responsible  for  the  Bible  manuscripts. 
The  Old  Testament  was  copied  by  a  pro- 
fessional copyist,  known  as  a  Scribe.  In 
the  time  of  Hezekiah  a  great  impetus  seems 
to  have  been  given  to  the  dihgent  copying  of 
the  Law,  and  it  would  appear  that  from  this 
period  dates  the  institution  of  the  Scribes  as 
guardians,  expounders,  and  copyists  of  the 
Law  of  Moses.  As  to  the  first  copies  of 
the  Gospels,  and  other  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  we  do  not  know  by  whose  hand 
they  were  done.  But  such  ancient  copies  of 
the  New  Testament  as  have  survived  the  lapse 
of  centuries  were  the  handiwork  of  a  public 
servant,  sometimes  not  fully  appreciated — the 
monk.  Writing  materials  of  many  different 
kinds  have  been  in  use  in  various  ages  and 
countries — such  as  stone,  clay  cylinders,  tree- 
bark,  and  waxed  tablets.  But  the  most  widely 
used  writing  material  for  several  centuries 
before  the  time  of  Christ  was  papyrus.  This 
distant  precursor  of  paper  was  made  by  the 
Egyptians,  first  of  all,  out  of  the  pith  of  the 
papyrus  reed.  It  is  this  plant  which,  under  the 
name   of  bulrush,  appears   in   the   story   of  the 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US 


infancy    of    Moses,    as     told     in     our     English 
Bible. 

It  is  very  likely  that  the  earhest  copies  of  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles  were  made  on  this  papyrus. 
We  cannot  say  this  with  certainty,  for  such 
ancient  copies  of  the  New  Testament  as  we 
possess  come  to  us  from  the  fourth  century, 
when  another  material  was  used.  This,  when 
made  from  the  skin  of  young  calves,  was  called 
vellum  ;  and  when  made  from  the  skin  of  sheep 
or  goats,  parchment.  The  ink  used  for  the 
New  Testament  manuscripts  was  made  of  soot 
or  lampblack  mixed  with  either  wine-lees  or 
gum.  The  pen  which  was  used  upon  the 
softer  papyrus  was  a  reed,  but  the  harder 
vellum  or  parchment  required  a  metal  pen  or 
stylus.  Nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the 
way  in  which  the  oldest  copies  of  the  New 
Testament  have  borne  the  test  of  time.  There 
are,  for  instance,  two  over  which  not  much  less 
than  1500  years  have  passed,  and  yet  they  are 
still  clear,  fresh,  and  legible.  The  original 
copyist  must  have  worked  well  to  execute  such 
enduring  work.  The  first  word  in  speaking 
about    manuscripts  of  the  Bible   must  be  a  word 

c 


34  OUR  BIBLE 


of  unstinted  praise  for  the  copyist.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  there  is  no  use  in  denying 
that  he  often  made  errors  in  his  work.  The 
copyist  was  not  infallible,  and  his  work  was  not, 
in  the  order  of  divine  providence,  exempted 
from  the  chances  of  corruption  which  attend 
upon  all  such  work  as  his.  The  copyist  was 
human,  and  could  not  but  fail  now  and  again. 
His  eye  grew  wearied,  his  mind  wandered,  the 
manuscript  from  which  he  copied  puzzled 
him  ;  "  the  spirit,  indeed,"  was  "  willing,  but 
the  flesh "  was  "  weak."  But,  happily  for  us, 
although  the  Bible  did  undoubtedly  suffer  a  good 
deal  in  the  puriiy  of  its  text  before  the  days  of 
printing,  it  has  not  suffered  in  such  a  way  as  to 
put  the  meaning  of  the  original  writers  in  any 
serious  jeopardy.  The  variations  in  the  different 
manuscripts  do  not  as  a  rule  affect  the  sense  of 
the  passages  in  which  they  occur.  They  do  not 
''  extinguish  the  light  of  any  one  chapter,  nor  so 
disguise  Christianity,  but  that  every  feature  of 
it  will  be  still  the  same." 


ENGLISH   TRANSLATORS   UP   TO    THE 
TIME    OF    WYCLIFFE 


ENGLISH   TRANSLATORS   UP   TO   THE 
TIME   OF   WYCLIFFE 

/^te'N  our  previous  paper  we  said  something 
^1  about  the  Bible  before  the  days  of 
printing,  and  were  chiefly  concerned 
with  it  in  its  original  languages  of  Hebrew  and 
Greek.  Now  we  shall  say  a  little  about  some  of 
the  steps  in  the  history  of  the  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  our  own  tongue.  The  word  transla- 
tion means  the  act  of  carrying  across.  Between 
us  and  a  book  written  in  a  foreign  tongue  there 
is  an  impassable  gulf  fixed.  We  want  some  one 
to  whom  the  gulf  is  not  impassable,  who  will  do 
a  translation,  a  carrying  across,  of  the  meaning 
for  us.  Such  a  person  is  called  a  translator. 
The  history  of  the  translation  of  the  Bible  into 
English  is  a  long  and  interesting  record  which 
carries  us  from  the  fountain-head  right  away 
down  the  broadening  stream  of  English  national 
life  to  the  present  time. 


38  OUR  BIBLE 


The  first  inhabitants  of  our  country  belonged 
to  the  great  Celtic  nation.  Among  the  Celtic 
population,  dominated  by  the  Roman  army  of 
occupation,  the  Church  of  Christ  was  founded  in 
the  close  of  the  second  century.  For  two 
centuries  and  a  half  the  British  Church  con- 
tinued to  increase,  and  before  long  it  came  to 
occupy  an  honoured  position  amongst  the 
national  Churches  of  the  West.  There  is  a  faint 
tradition  of  a  version  of  the  Scriptures  among 
the  Celts  in  the  vernacular;  but  the  report  is  too 
uncertain  to  command  much  attention. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  fifth  century  the 
Roman  garrison  was  withdrawn  in  order  to  prop 
up  the  tottering  throne  of  Honorius.  Then 
began  the  troubles  of  Britain.  Old  enemies 
reappeared  and  ravaged  the  coast  line.  These 
came  from  Schleswig,  Jutland,  and  Holstein, 
from  the  region  at  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe,  and 
from  the  Baltic  shores.  The  people  were  Angles, 
Jutes,  and  Saxons,  who  either  found  their  own 
homes  too  strait,  or  were  simply  led  by  the  love 
of  adventure  and  conquest.  The  Romans  had 
managed  to  keep  them  from  doing  much  harm  in 
their  piratical  expeditions.    But  now  the  Romans 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  39 

were  gone  and  there  was  no  more  a  Count  of  the 
Saxon  shore  guarding  the  seaboard  from  the 
Wash  to  Southampton  Water.  We  all  re- 
member how,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century, 
the  Angles  and  Saxons  became,  for  the  moment, 
allies  of  the  Britons  against  the  Picts,  who  lived 
in  the  Scotch  Highlands.  But  soon  the  allies 
were  on  the  offensive  against  their  former 
friends.  Slowly  and  doggedly  the  fight  was 
fought  out.  What  though  Arthur  and  his 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table  did  great  feats  of 
arms,  and  though  the  Britons  fought  bravely  for 
hearth  and  home,  they  were  in  the  end  thoroughly 
defeated,  and  only  kept  a  foothold  in  Wales  and 
Cornwall.  To  these  retreats  the  Christian 
religion  and  the  Christian  church  was  relegated 
for  a  century  and  a  half.  The  gods  which  are 
commemorated  in  the  names  of  our  days  of  the 
week — these  gods  alone  were  worshipped  for 
many  generations  in  England.  But  towards  the 
close  of  the  sixth  century,  partly  by  the  agency 
of  British  evangelists  from  the  north  and  partly 
by  the  agency  of  Italian  missionaries  who  worked 
in  the  south-east  of  England,  the  heathen  Angles 
and    Saxons    embraced    Christianity.       By    the 


40  OUR  BIBLE 


middle  of  the  seventh  century  the  Church  had 
attained  to  uniformity,  and  thus,  prior  to  the 
unity  of  the  kingdom,  for  as  yet  England  was 
politically  a  divided  house,  we  get  sight  of  a 
pattern  of  unity  in  the  Church  of  England. 
Churches,  like  individuals,  follow  somewhat  the 
fashion  of  the  day.  And,  if  these  fashions  are 
harmless,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
not.  In  the  seventh  century  the  fashion  was  to 
preserve  the  Bible  in  Latin.  This  was  the 
language  of  the  educated  world.  To  put  so 
difficult  a  book  as  the  Bible  into  the  hands  of 
the  uneducated  seemed  unwise.  If  the  people 
were  taught  the  chief  contents  of  the  Bible  that 
was  considered  enough.  The  unlearned  must 
take  those  things  from  the  lips  of  the  learned, 
and  must  not  cause  themselves  to  "stumble  at 
the  word."  And  yet  in  Old  England  before 
the  Conquest  there  was  a  longing  in  some 
quarters  to  have  at  least  portions  of  the  Bible  in 
the  popular  tongue,  and  this  was  answered,  by 
some  notable  attempts  at  translation. 

The  story  of  the  English  Bible  begins  with 
Caedmon  of  Whitby  in  670.  More  than  twelve 
centuries    ago  a  lady  of  royal    blood    and   truly 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  41 

royal  spirit  reared  an  abbey  on  the  dark  clifl's 
of  Whitby,  in  Yorkshire.  She  had  built  before 
this  a  similar  house  at  Hartlepool,  on  the  Tees. 
The  lady's  name  was  Hilda.  Of  her  the 
historian  Bede  says  :  *'  Her  prudence  was  so 
great  that  not  only  did  ordinary  persons,  but 
even  sometimes  kings  and  princes,  seek  and 
receive  counsel  of  her  in  their  necessities."  We 
are  also  told  that  "  she  made  those  who  were 
under  her  direction  give  much  time  to  the  read- 
ing of  the  divine  Scriptures  ; "  and  this  encour- 
agement of  Biblical  stud}^  had  its  far-reaching 
results  by  which  she  "being  dead  yet  speaketh." 
For — and  now  we  shall  use  the  exact  words  of 
Bede — "  in  the  monastery  of  this  abbess  was  a 
certain  brother  especially  marked  by  divine  grace, 
since  he  was  wont  to  make  songs  suited  to 
religion  and  piety,  so  that  whatever  he  had 
learnt  from  the  divine  writings  through  inter- 
preters, this  he  in  a  little  while  produced  in 
poetical  expressions  composed  with  the  greatest 
harmony  and  accuracy,  in  his  own  tongue,  that 
is,  in  that  of  the  Angles.  By  his  songs  the 
minds  of  many  were  excited  to  contemn  the 
world  and  desire  the  celestial  life.      And,  indeed, 


42  OUR  BIBLE 


others  also  after  him,  in  the  nation  of  the  Angles, 
attempted  to  compose  religious  poems,  but  none 
could  ever  equal  him.  For  he  himself  did  not 
learn  the  art  of  poetry  from  man,  or  by  being 
instructed  by  man,  but,  being  divinely  assisted, 
received  gratuitously  the  gift  of  singing,  on 
which  account  he  never  could  compose  any 
frivolous  or  idle  poem,  but  those  only  Avhich 
pertain  to  religion  suited  his  religious  tongue. 
For  having  lived  in  the  secular  habit  unto  the 
time  of  advanced  age,  he  had  never  learned 
anything  of  singing.  Whence,  sometimes  at  an 
entertainment,  when  it  was  determined  for  the 
sake  of  mirth  that  all  should  sing  in  order,  he, 
when  he  saw  the  harp  approaching  him,  used  to 
rise  in  the  midst  of  the  supper,  and,  having  gone 
out,  walk  back  to  his  home.  Which  when  he 
was  doing  on  a  time,  and,  having  left  the  house 
of  entertainment,  had  gone  out  to  the  stables  of 
the  beasts  of  burden,  the  care  of  which  was 
entrusted  to  him  on  that  night,  and  then  at  the 
proper  hour  had  resigned  his  limbs  to  sleep,  a 
certain  one  stood  by  him  in  a  dream,  who, 
saluting  him  and  calling  him  by  his  name,  said, 
*  Caedmon,    sing     me     something.'       Then     he 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  43 

answering  said,  '  I  know  not  how  to  sing  ;  and 
for  that  reason  I  went  out  from  the  entertain- 
ment and  retired  hither  because  I  could  not 
sing.'  Again  he  who  was  talking  with  him 
said,  '  Yet  you  have  something  to  sing  to  me.' 
'  What/  said  he,  '  must  I  sing  ?  '  The  other 
said,  '  Sing  me  the  beginning  of  created  things.' 
Having  received  this  reply  he  immediately  began 
to  sing  verses  in  praise  of  God  the  Creator, 
which  he  had  never  heard.  .  .  .  On  his  rising  up 
from  sleep  he  retained  in  memory  all  that  he  had 
sung  in  his  dream,  and  presently  added  to  it 
more  words  of  song  worthy  of  God,  and  after  the 
same  fashion." 

The  matter  came  to  the  ears  of  Hilda  through 
the  convent  steward.  The  cowherd  was  accord- 
ingly received  in  audience  of  many  learned  men, 
and,  after  hearing  him,  all  concluded  ''  that  a 
celestial  gift  had  been  granted  him  by  the  Lord." 
Csedmon  now  left  the  secular  habit  and  took  the 
monastic  vow,  and  was  instructed  by  the  brethren 
in  the  whole  course  of  sacred  history.  ''  And 
he  converted  into  most  sweet  song  whatever  he 
could  learn  from  hearing,  by  thinking  it  over  by 
himself,    and    as,    though    a    clean    animal,    by 


44  OUR  BIBLE 


ruminating ;  and  by  making  it  resound  more 
sweetly,  made  his  teachers  in  turn  his  hearers." 
Caedmon  seems  to  have  ranged  all  over  the 
Bible  for  his  subject-matter,  casting  the  stories 
of  Scripture  into  a  rough  verse  form.  No  doubt 
the  poetry  of  Caedmon  seems  very  rugged  and 
uncouth  to  our  ears,  which  are  familiar  with  the 
latest  development  of  the  poet's  art ;  but,  at 
least,  we  know  that  Caedmon  was  an  acceptable 
singer  to  his  own  generation.  And  so  in  the 
seventh  century,  on  the  great  rock  above  the 
little  harbour  of  Whitby,  Bible  translation  and 
EngHsh  poetry  both  took  their  rise. 

But  one,  far  better  known  than  Caedmon, 
laboured  as  a  translator,  and  died  in  his  labours, 
some  sixty-five  years  later,  namely,  the  Venerable 
Bede,  the  great  Northumbrian  scholar.  When 
he  was  seven  years  old  he  was  placed  in  the 
monastery  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Wear,  where 
now  Monkwearmouth  stands,  and  a  little  later, 
when  Benedict  Biscop  had  built  the  sister 
monastery  at  Jarrow,  Bede  left  Wearside  for 
Tyneside.  At  Jarrow,  Bede  lived  a  happy  and 
useful  life.  He  never  ventured  far  from  his 
home  on  the  Tyne,  but  he  travelled  far  and  wide 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  45 

in  the  world  of  literature  and  science.  "  The 
whole  learning  of  the  time,"  says  the  historian 
Green,  ''seemed  to  be  summed  up  in  him." 
"  He  was  the  father,"  said  Edmund  Burke,  "  of 
English  learning."  His  "  Ecclesiastical  History 
of  the  English  Nation,"  from  which  I  quoted  the 
story  of  Csedmon,  is  a  unique  authority.  One 
of  our  latest  historians,  speaking  of  our  earliest 
annalist,  says,  ''  All  that  we  really  know  of  the 
century  and  a  half  that  follows  the  landing  of 
Augustine  we  know  from  him."  The  dearest 
work  he  undertook  was  commenting  upon  and 
preaching  from  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  last 
offering  of  his  powers  which  he  made  to  God  was 
a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  Death 
summoned  him  before  his  work  was  well  done, 
but  he  would  not  heed  the  summons  until  he  had 
quite  finished  his  task.  ''  I  don't  want  my  boys 
to  read  a  lie,"  he  said,  alluding  to  his  young 
pupils  and  his  unfinished  work,  ''  or  to  work  to 
no  purpose  after  I  am  gone."  It  is  one  of 
Bede's  dear  ''  boys  "  who  tells  us  of  the  closing 
scene,  with  many  tender  touches.  ''Our  father 
and  master,  whom  God  loved,  had  translated  the 
Gospel   of  St.   John   as   far  as  'what   are   these 


46  OUR  BIBLE 


among  so  many,'  when  the  day  came  before  our 
Lord's  Ascension."  It  was  the  year  735.  "  He 
then  began  to  suffer  much  in  his  breath  and  a 
swelling  came  in  his  feet,  but  he  went  on 
dictating  to  his  scribe.  '  Go  on  quickly,'  he 
said  ;  *  I  know  not  how  long  I  shall  hold  out,  or 
how  soon  my  Master  will  call  me  hence.'  All 
night  long  he  lay  awake  in  thanksgiving,  and 
when  the  Ascension  day  dawned  he  commanded 
us  to  write  with  all  speed  what  he  had  begun." 
Working  and  resting,  the  precious  moments  sped 
on  till  the  setting  sun  gilded  the  floor  of  Bedels 
cell.  "'There  remains  but  one  chapter,  master,' 
said  the  scribe,  '  but  it  seems  very  hard  for  you 
to  speak.'  ^  Nay,  it  is  easy,'  said  the  brave  old 
man,  '  take  up  thy  pen  and  write  quickly.'  "  The 
boy's  bitter  tears  dropped  upon  the  page  as  he 
wrote.  The  time  wore  on.  "  And  now,  father," 
said  the  lad,  ''only  one  sentence  remains."  The 
dying  man  uttered  it.  "  It  is  finished,  master," 
said  the  youth,  raising  his  sorrowful  face,  as  he 
penned  the  last  word.  "  Ay,  it  is  finished  !  " 
echoed  the  old  scholar.  "  Lift  me  up,  place  me 
at  that  window^  of  my  cell  where  I  have  so  often 
prayed  to  God.      Now,  glory  be  to  the   Father, 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  47 

and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost."  And 
with  these  words  Bede  breathed  out  his  life 
Manufacture  has  changed  the  aspect  of  Bede's 
Jarrow.  But  there  is  something  still  remaining 
which  connects  the  present  and  the  past — that  is, 
the  chancel  of  the  present  parish  church,  whose 
fabric  is  as  old  as  the  time  of  Bede  himself.  The 
body  of  the  saint  rested  for  a  long  while  at 
Jarrow,  but  in  the  eleventh  century  the  bones 
were  removed  to  Durham  Cathedral,  and  now 
they  lie  in  the  Galilee  Chapel  at  the  west  end  of 
the  great  pile.  In  life  translated  from  Wearside 
to  Tyneside  ;  in  death  he  is  brought  back  again 
to  lie  beside  the  river  of  his  earliest  remembrance. 
If  Caedmon  is  the  father  of  English  poetry,  we 
may  revere  in  Bede  the  father  of  English 
prose. 

It  is  difficult  to  gain  a  certain  knowledge  of 
the  doings  of  King  Alfred,  Tradition  has  been 
busy  with  the  character  and  achievements  of  the 
great  patriot  king.  But  perhaps  we  shall  not  be 
wrong  in  claiming  Alfred  as  one  in  the  great 
company  of  English  translators  of  the  Bible.  At 
least  it  is  well  ascertained  that  Alfred  •'  took  the 
English  tongue,  and  made  it  the  tongue  in  which 


48  OUR  BIBLE 

history,  philosophy,  law,  and  religion  spoke  to 
the  English  people."  Two  contributions  to  Bible 
translation  are  claimed  for  Alfred,  (i)  A  trans- 
lation of  the  Ten  Commandments  attached  to  the 
statutes  of  the  time.  (2)  A  translation  of  some 
of  the  Psalms.  Alfred's  admiration  for  the 
Psalms  is  worth  remembering.  In  the  early 
days  of  outlawry  it  is  said  that  he  would  read 
the  Psalms  in  a  Latin  manuscript  which  he  car- 
ried with  him  over  the  camp  fire  when  the  toils 
of  the  day  were  done.  When  at  length  he  came 
to  an  established  throne  he  did  not  forget  those 
earlier  days  or  the  words  which  had  come  home 
to  him  in  the  time  of  trouble  and  rebuke.  The 
result  was  a  translation  of  some  of  the  Psalms. 
It  is  touching  to  think  of  those  Psalms  which 
have  ministered  to  the  joys  and  pains  of  so  many 
millions  in  England  alone,  not  to  speak  of  other 
countries,  as  having  been  the  cordial  which 
revived  the  drooping  spirits  of  one  of  our  earliest 
and  greatest  kings. 

And  ere  we  leave  the  old  Saxon  England 
there  is  yet  one  more  translator  over  whose 
work  we  may  pause  a  moment.  ^Elfric  the 
grammarian,   a   monk   of  Winchester,  translated 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  49 

portions  of  the  Bible,  about  the  year  1023, 
into  English.  The  work  was  animated  by  a 
patriotic  purpose.  Of  his  version  of  Joshua 
the  grammarian  says  :  "  This  book  I  turned  into 
English  for  Ealdorman  Ethelward,  a  book  that 
a  prince  might  study  in  times  of  invasion 
and  turbulence."  Of  the  Book  of  Judith,  which 
he  also  translated,  he  says:  ''Englished  according 
to  my  skill,  for  your  example,  that  you  may 
also  defend  your  country  by  force  of  arms 
against   the   outrage   of  foreign   hosts." 

The  previous  period  closed,  in  the  foreboding 
words  of  iElfric,  ominous  of  blood  and  battle. 
This  our  second  period  fulfils  the  monk's  presage 
of  "  invasion  and  turbulence  and  the  outrage 
of  foreign  hosts."  Just  as  six  hundred  years 
before  Saxons,  Jutes  and  Angles,  with  their 
strange  tongue,  had  come  in  upon  the  then 
inhabitants  of  Britain,  so  now  the  Normans 
came  down  upon  the  country  where  Briton, 
Saxon,  Angle,  and  Dane  were  struggling  to- 
gether, and  added  one  more  element  which 
would  contribute,  when  the  process  of  fusion 
was  over,  its  own  peculiar  flavour  and  colour 
to  the  resultant  of  all  these  forces — the  English 

p 


so  OUR  BIBLE 


kingdom,  the  English  people,  the  Enghsh  tongue. 
Once  again,  in  the  case  of  the  Norman  invasion 
as  in  the  case  of  the  previous  invasions  of 
Roman,  Saxon,  Dane,  the  pains  of  death  and 
of  birth  racked  the  land.  What  was  customary 
and  familiar  and  established  died,  and  a  new 
order  struggled  painfully,  with  sharp  crying, 
into  Hfe.  But  death-throes  and  birth-pangs 
were  but  the  prelude  to  what  now  we  see 
was  the  divine  event — the  welding  of  the  peoples 
into  a  homogeneous  whole,  bringing  with  it  a 
national  consciousness,  a  national  speech,  and 
a  national  ideal.  But  to  all  human  seeming 
heavy  and  fatal  was  the  blow  of  the  Conqueror's 
successful  invasion.  To  use  the  apt  language 
of  Isaiah,  it  was  the  inroad  of  "  a  fierce  people, 
a  people  of  a  deep  speech  that  thou  canst  not 
perceive,  of  a  strange  tongue  that  thou  canst 
not  understand." 

The  Normans  came  speaking  French.  They 
flooded  town  and  court  and  castle  with  their 
own  people ;  the  bishoprics  of  the  Church  were 
filled  by  French-speaking  ecclesiastics,  who  did 
not  sympathise  with  the  conquered  people. 

But  the   strength   of  England   lay   not  in   its 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  51 

towns,  but  in  its  villages.  To  them  we  owe  it 
that  in  the  end  French  became  incorporated  with 
Saxon,  and  not  Saxon  with  French.  At  the 
first  moment  of  defeat  daring  spirits  like  Hereward 
rose  in  armed  revolt  among  the  fens  of  Lincoln- 
shire ;  others  of  similar  disposition  wandered  as 
far  as  Constantinople,  and  served  as  mercenaries 
of  the  Eastern  empire ;  and  a  fraction  of  the 
more  reckless,  of  whom  Robin  Hood  is  the 
representative,  fled  to  forests,  like  that  of 
Sherwood,  and  lived  an  outlaw  life  under 
the   greenwood  tree. 

But  the  people  (who  numbered  not  more 
than  two  millions)  as  a  whole  submitted  to  the 
Normans.  They  had  never  been  "  more  than 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water"  under 
their  own  native  rulers,  and  to  obey  the  Norman 
made  Httle  or  no  difference  to  their  condition. 
But  while  the}^  had  no  objection  to  changing 
one  master  for  another,  they  would  not  change 
one  tongue  for  another.  Norman  French  was 
the  language  of  the  invading  army,  and  therefore 
of  the  ruling  class ;  it  was  used  in  the  courts 
of  justice  and  in  all  matters  of  state  ;  but  the 
people   still   held    to   the    tongue    wherein    they 


OUR  BIBLE 


were  born.  In  1204,  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  years  after  the  Conquest,  Normandy  was 
lost  for  ever  as  a  permanent  appendage  to 
England,  and  one  result  was  that  this  island 
became  more  and  more  a  home  to  the  Normans, 
and  French  became  more  and  more  of  a  foreign 
tongue  to  them.  ''EngUsh  had  not  only  survived, 
but  was  spreading  itself  through  the  upper  classes. 
Norman  children  could  not  be  kept  from  learning 
it ;  and  the  higher  ranks,  being  a  minority,  felt 
the  necessity  of  acquiring  it.  By  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century  English  seems  to  have  become 
the  mother  tongue  of  the  aristocracy,  their  chil- 
dren being  taught  French  as  a  foreign  language, 
and  as  an  accomplishment  befitting  their  rank." 

And  year  by  year  the  English  tongue  developed 
and  enriched  on  this  hand  and  on  that,  drew  on 
to  its  golden  age  to  be  the  high  instrument  for 
high  thoughts.  One  great  stage  in  its  growth 
is  marked  by  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  at  the  close  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  and  his  *'  Canterbury 
Tales."  The  latent  powers  of  English  ^*  pure 
and  undefiled  "  are  manifested  as  the  vehicle  of 
a  most  exquisite  power  of  story-telling,  and  we 
feel  that  this  is  the  earnest  of  greater  things  to 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  53 

come.  But  we  cannot  tarry  to  link  our  subject 
further  with  its  contemporary  literature.  For 
we  have  come  now  to  the  age  of  Wycliffe  and 
his  Bible.  The  events  which  lead  to  Chaucer's 
English  lead  also  to  that  of  Wycliffe,  and  in  all 
probability  by  a  few  years  Wycliffe's  Bible  can 
claim  priority  over  Chaucer's  work  as  the  first 
great  monument  of  really  English  literature. 

John  Wycliffe  was  born  near  Richmond,  in 
Yorkshire — the  exact  date  is  not  known,  but  in 
1 361,  he  was  Master  of  Balliol  Hall,  in  Oxford, 
and  from  then  till  his  death  in  1384,  his  doings 
are  writ  large  in  history.  The  times  were  stir- 
ring. Edward  III.  ascended  the  throne  in  1327, 
and  ten  years  later  began  the  Hundred  Years' 
War  with  France.  These  were  the  days  of 
Crepy  and  Poitiers  and  the  Black  Prince.  In 
1 348  the  Black  Death  reached  England,  and  in 
the  course  of  several  separate  outbreaks  halved 
the  population,  which  then  amounted  to  three  or 
four  milHons.  Labour  was  disarranged  ;  wages 
rose  ;  the  serf  began  to  beat  off  his  shackles. 
Under  Wat  Tyler  and  John  Ball,  "  the  mad 
priest,"  in  1381,  the  peasants  revolted  against 
the  oppressive  restrictions  imposed   by  landlords 


54  OUR  BIBLE 


and  lawyers  upon  their  new  spirit  of  independence. 
Abroad  also  the  system  of  mediaeval  feudalism 
was  breaking  up,  and  time-honoured  landmarks 
were  perishing.  The  Papacy  had  been  removed 
to  Avignon  and  was  now  transparently  no  more 
a  spiritual  force,  but  a  kingdom  of  this  world 
and  the  tool  of  a  French  king.  But  Rome  still 
claimed  huge  money  payments  from  England, 
and  still  thrust  foreign  priests  into  Enghsh 
livings.  People  muttered  under  their  breath — 
and  men  ^'despised  the  offering  of  the  Lord," 
This  state  of  things  could  not  last  long.  The 
English  clerg}'  were  severed  in  sympathy  from 
Rome,  but  they  severed  themselves  from  the 
respect  and  love  of  the  people  by  their  own 
corruption.  The  Friars  and  their  noble  work 
were  things  of  the  past  ;  like  the  lees  of  a  rich 
wine  the  impudent  mendicant  alone  remained  to 
witness  to  what  had  been.  The  Baronage, 
with  John  of  Gaunt  at  their  head,  denied  all  the 
duties  of  their  station.  They  were  jealous  of 
the  priests,  jealous  of  Parliament,  jealous  of  the 
people — they  loved  themselves  alone.  In  this 
world  Wyclifife  struggled  and  strove  ;  into  the 
midst  of  this  distracted  age  he  cast   the  pearl   of 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  c,s 

great  price,  the  first  complete  English  Bible. 
He  did  it  by  design.  He  advocated  as  the  cure 
for  the  distemper  of  his  age  the  freedom  of  the 
Church,  the  kingdom,  and  the  conscience  from 
all  foreign  control.  He  believed  that  an  open 
Bible  would  in  the  long  run  teach  men  the  ideal 
of  authority  and  government,  and  the  ideal  of 
independence  and  self-control. 

In  1384,  while  hearing  mass  in  his  parish 
church  at  Lutterworth,  he  was  seized  with 
paralysis  and  died  quietly  on  the  next  day, 
Wycliflfe's  Bible  was  the  work  of  his  later  days  ; 
it  was  pubHshed  in  1383.  About  half  the  Old 
Testament  is  the  work  of  Nicholas  of  Hereford, 
the  other  half  and  the  whole  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  Wyclifife's  own.  Its  chief  defect  is  that 
it  is  only  a  translation  of  a  translation.  W3^cliffe 
knew  neither  Greek  nor  Hebrew,  nor  did  any  one 
else  in  England  at  that  time.  Its  chief  merit 
is  its  vigorous  and  forcible  Enghsh,  combined 
with  great  dignity.  Eight  years  after  his  death, 
Richard  Purvey,  his  curate,  revised  the  whole, 
and  his  MS.  is  still  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin. 

The  book  had  a  wide  circulation.  Parliament 
was    appealed    to    to    stop    it.       The    Duke    of 


56  OUR  BIBLE 


Lancaster  answered  right  sharply,  *'  We  will 
not  be  the  refuse  of  all  other  nations,  for  since 
they  have  God's  law  in  their  own  language  we 
will  have  ours  in  English,  whoever  say  nay  ; " 
and  this  he  affirmed  with  a  great  oath.  Never- 
theless, Convocation  condemned  the  reading  of 
the  book  under  pains  and  penalties.  And  yet 
it  was  still  popular  among  the  rich  and  the  poor. 
A  large  sum  was  paid  for  even  a  few  sheets  of 
the  manuscript ;  a  load  of  hay  was  given  for 
permission  to  read  it  for  a  certain  period  one 
hour  a  day.  Those  who  could  not  afford  the 
book  would  get  some  one  who  knew  a  portion  by 
heart  to  come  and  repeat  it.  We  are  told  of 
one  Alice  Collins,  sent  for  "  to  recite  the  Ten 
Commandments  and  parts  of  the  Epistles  of 
Saints  Paul  and  Peter,  which  she  knew  by 
heart." 

''  Certes/'  says  John  Foxe,  "  the  zeal  of  those 
Christian  days  seems  much  superior  to  this  of 
our  day,  and  to  see  the  travail  of  them  may  well 
shame  our  careless  times." 


ENGLISH  TRANSLATORS   UP  TO   THE 
SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 


ENGLISH   TRANSLATORS   UP  TO   THE 
SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

€ONTiNUiNG  our  history  from  the  era  of 
Wycliffe,  we  must  pass  from  the  four- 
teenth to  the  fifteenth  century.  Great 
events  happened  in  the  latter  century  with  far- 
reaching  consequences.  In  1453  Constantinople 
fell  before  the  Ottoman  Turks.  The  Greek 
Empire,  the  eastern  division  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  had  run  its  course.  Five  boats  laden 
with  Greeks  and  their  books  touched  the  coast  of 
Italy.  This  was  only  the  vanguard  of  a  great 
argosy.  Greek  literature,  Greek  art,  Greek 
culture,  came  westward  before  the  Mahometan 
destroyer.  The  refugees  from  the  East  were 
the  heralds  of  a  forward  movement.  The  Greek 
language  was  now  widely  studied  in  the  West. 
The  result  was  two-fold — a  greater  freedom  of 
thought  and  a  revived  interest  in  the  New 
Testament.      *'  Greece  arose  from  the  dead  with  / 


6o  OUR  BIBLE 


the  New  Testament  in  her  hand."  This  saying 
belongs  to  the  period  we  are  speaking  about. 
Manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament  in  its  original 
Greek  and  a  more  general  knowledge  of  the 
language  came  together  into  the  West,  and  thus 
the  great  groundwork  of  theology  became  once 
more  a  subject  of  investigation.  And  the  key 
which  opened  one  treasure-chamber  opened 
others  also.  The  study  of  the  great  masters 
of  Greek  literature  and  philosophy  had  a  widen- 
ing effect  upon  men's  minds.  Thought  and 
inquiry,  narrowed  and  straitened  by  ecclesi- 
astical considerations,  became  emboldened  to 
occupy  a  larger  room.  The  questioning, 
inquiring  spirit,  never,  of  course,  dead, 
now  renewed  its  impaired  energies,  and  with 
a  burst  of  noble  enthusiasm  pressed  forward 
in  the  search  for  truth.  This  movement  of 
the  human  mind,  according  as  it  is  viewed 
from  within  or  without,  is  called  either  the 
Renaissance,  the  New  Birth,  or  the  Revival  of 
Learning. 

Simultaneously  with  the  great  revival  came 
the  mechanical  contrivance  of  the  printing-press, 
destined   to  make  knowledge,  once  the  heritage 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  6i 

of  the  elect,  the  common  property  of  all.  A 
new  world  was  made  in  the  end  of  the  century 
still  newer  by  the  discovery  of  America  and  the 
revelations  of  the  daring  school  of  navigators, 
of  whom  Columbus  is  the  chief.  Suddenly 
Europeans  realised  that  the  earth  had  incredibly 
widened,  and  the  fabled  Atlantis  became  a  sober 
fact.  Again  a  few  erratic  men,  mere  "  bookish 
theorists,"  might  have  maintained  the  rotundity 
of  the  earth,  yet  tradition  was  against  them  ; 
but  now  the  navigator  has  proved  the  tradition 
wrong  and  the  theor}^  right — the  earth  is  round 
and  not  flat.  A  few  years  more  and  a  German 
canon,  Copernicus,  will  give  the  world  the 
results  of  laborious  days  and  nights  spent  in 
the  lonely  tower  at  Frauenburg.  There  will  be 
a  new  heaven  as  well  as  a  new  earth,  and  the 
former  things  will  have  passed  away.  A  little 
while,  too,  and  a  Luther  will  lead  the  way  in  an 
exodus  from  the  realm  of  mediaeval  theology 
and  ecclesiasticism,  and  the  Reformation  will 
have  taken  place  in  Northern  Europe. 

Everywhere  men  are  called  to  readjust  their 
thoughts  about  many  things,  to  look  out  on  an 
altered  world,  to  fit  themselves  into  a  new  social. 


62  OUR    BIBLE 


philosophical,  or  religious  framework,  and  this 
necessary  work  will  only  be  done  slowly,  and 
will  doubtless  involve  some  temporary  loss  and 
disadvantage. 

The  years  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  witnessed 
in  many  parts  of  Europe  much  licence.  "  When 
the  stream  is  troubled  the  mud  comes  to  the 
top,"  says  the  proverb.  Periods  of  change  are 
always  periods  of  moral  danger.  The  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  The  latent  beast  within  us  is 
only  repulsed  and  kept  down  by  an  effort. 
Great  changes  unhinge  us  by  reason  of  the 
tremendous  excitement  they  involve.  We  are 
weak  and  off  our  guard,  and  then  the  beast 
within  us  rises  up  and  is  rampant.  In  such 
times  we  have  need  of  strong  men  whose  heads 
have  not  been  turned.  They  are  convinced  that, 
while  much  changes  on  the  surface,  beneath  the 
surface  things  are  unmoved.  Earth  and  heaven 
may  pass  away,  and  yet  in  spite  of  shifting 
scenes  and  changed  appearances  the  words  of 
One  shall  not  pass  away.  It  is  the  task  of  the 
strong  man  who  ministers  in  a  shaken  age  to 
testify  of  those  things  which   cannot   be  shaken. 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  63 

And  this  was  the  work  of  the  next  great  trans- 
lator of  the  Bible  on  whom  the  mantle  of 
Wyclifte  fell — viz.,  William  Tyndale. 

Born  in  1484,  Tyndale  drew  in  the  new 
atmosphere  of  the  new  world.  When  he  went 
to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  he  learnt  Hebrew  and 
Greek,  and  thus  was  equipped  for  the  task 
which  fell  to  him  at  a  later  time.  At  Cambridge 
Tyndale  was  a  hearer  of  the  Greek  professor, 
the  great  Erasmus;  and  when,  in  1526,  he 
translated  the  New  Testament,  it  was  from  a 
printed  Greek  Text  edited  by  Erasmus.  When 
Tyndale  left  the  universities  he  became  a  tutor 
to  a  Gloucestershire  knight's  children  near 
Chipping  Sodbury.  Here  it  was  that  the  first 
thought  came  to  him  to  minister  to  his  age  and 
its  infirmities  by  retranslating  from  the  original 
tongues  that  great  vehicle  of  spiritual  edification, 
the  Bible.  He  resolved,  "  if  God  spared  his 
life,  ere  many  years  he  would  cause  a  boy  that 
driveth  the  plough  to  know  more  of  the  ', 
Scriptures  than  the  Pope  did."  The  resolve  \ 
was  one  easily  made,  but  only  painfully  carried 
out.  In  1524  he  appHed  to  Cuthbert  Tonstal, 
then   Bishop   of  London,   to    be   taken   into   his 


64  OUR  BIBLE 


lordship's  household.  It  was  the  custom  in 
those  days  for  a  man  to  seek  such  succour. 
One  needed  a  patron  while  pursuing  the  thorny 
paths  of  literature  and  scholarship.  But  the 
request  was  refused.  In  melancholy  mood  he 
writes  to  his  friend  Fryth,  giving  a  despondent 
picture  of  himself,  as  '^evil  favoured  in  this 
world,  and  without  grace  in  the  sight  of  men, 
speechless  and  rude,  dull  and  slow-witted." 
Still  he  tarried  in  the  great  wilderness  of 
London,  and  fell  into  the  kind  hands  of 
Humphrey  Monmouth,  a  merchant.  But  plainer 
and  ever  plainer  it  became  that  he  could  not 
safely  carry  out  his  work  of  translation  in 
England.  In  1524  he  left  his  native  land  for 
Hamburg.  ''  For,"  says  he  ^'  I  perceive  that 
not  only  in  my  lord  of  London's  palace  but  in 
all  England  there  was  no  room  for  attempting 
a  translation  of  the  Scriptures."  Henceforward, 
until  his  martyrdom  in  1536,  he  worked  at  his 
translation.  Now  he  is  at  Worms,  now  at 
Cologne,  now  at  Marburg,  now  at  Antwerp  ; 
fresh  and  fresh  editions,  from  1525  and  onwards, 
of  the  New  Testament  issuing  from  his  flying 
press,  and  the  Books  of  Moses  and  the  Book  of 


HOIV  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  65 

Jonah  as  well.  Like  Wycliffe,  he  was  a  vigor- 
ous pamphleteer,  only  he  had  the  advantage 
over  his  predecessors  of  the  rapid  multiplica- 
tion of  copies  which  the  printing-press  implies. 
Time  will  not  allow  us  to  dwell  at  length 
on  the  chequered  life  and  adventures  of  him, 
who,  more  than  any  other  man,  is  the  hero 
of  the  national  Reformation.  There  is  in  him 
something  of  the  apostolic  spirit,  and  certainly 
something  of  the  apostolic  experience.  "  In 
journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in  perils 
by  mine  own  countr3^men,  in  perils  by  strangers, 
in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilderness, 
in  perils  among  false  brethren ;  in  weariness  and 
painfulness,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger  and 
thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness." 
All  this  is  literally  true  of  William  Tyndale,  and 
yet,  exiled  and  mostly  alone,  he  worked  on 
unmoved,  and  translated  with  such  felicity  and 
power  that  his  version,  after  all  this  lapse  of 
time,  is  still  the  foundation  and  the  base  of  the 
translation  which  we  read  to-day.  There  is  a 
humorous  side,  too,  to  Tyndale's  life  to  which  1 
should  like  to  introduce  the  reader.  Tyndale's 
Testaments    poured    into    England   in    a    flood ; 

E 


66  OUR  BIBLE 


sometimes  they  were  packed  in  cases,  sometimes 
they  were  hid  in  barrels,  in  bales  of  cloth,  or  in 
sacks  of  flour.  Fast  as  they  came  they  were 
bought  up  by  Cardinal  Wolsey  and  the  authorities, 
and  burned  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  '*  as  a  burnt  offer- 
ing," so  said  Campeggio,  the  Legate,  "most 
pleasing  to  Almighty  God."  But  the  printing- 
press  printed  quicker  than  the  fire  burned.  A 
brilliant  scheme  flashed  into  the  mind  of  Tonstal, 
Bishop  of  London.  He  sought  out  an  Antwerp 
merchant,  Pakington,  and  asked  his  opinion 
about  the  buying  up  of  all  the  copies  across 
the  water.  ''  My  lord,"  said  Pakington,  who 
was  a  secret  friend  to  Tyndale,  *'  if  it  be  your 
pleasure  I  could  do  in  this  matter  probably  more 
than  any  merchant  in  England  ;  so  if  it  be  your 
lordship's  pleasure  to  pay  for  them  I  will  ensure 
you  to  have  every  book  that  remains  unsold." 
'•  Gentle  master  Pakington,"  said  the  Bishop, 
deeming  that  ''  he  hadde  an  angel  by  the  toe 
whanne  in  truth  he  hadde,  as  after  he  thought, 
the  devyl  by  the  fiste,"  ''  do  your  dihgence  and 
get  them  for  me,  and  I  will  gladly  give  you 
whatever  they  may  cost,  for  the  books  are 
naughty,  and  I  intend  surely  to  destroy  them  all 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  67 

and  to  burn  them  at  Paul's  Cross."  The  scene 
changes,  and  we  see  Pakington  and  Tyndale  in 
conference.  ''  Master  Tyndale/'  said  Pakington, 
"  I  have  found  you  a  good  purchaser  for  your 
books."  ''  Who  is  he  ?"  ''  My  lord  of  London." 
"  But  if  the  Bishop  wants  the  books,  it  must 
only  be  to  burn  them."  ''  Well,  what  of  that  ? 
The  Bishop  will  burn  them  anyhow,  and  it  is 
best  that  you  should  have  the  money  for  the 
enabling  you  to  print  others  instead."  *^  And 
so,"  says  Hall,  the  chronicler,  ''  the  bargain  was 
made.  The  Bishop  had  the  books,  Pakington 
had  the  thanks,  and  Tyndale  had  the  money." 
Naturally  enough  copies  multiplied,  and  the 
Bishop  sent  for  Pakington  to  know  why  and 
wherefore.  "  My  lord,  it  were  best  for  your 
lordship  to  buy  up  the  stamps,  too,  by  the  which 
they  are  imprinted."  And  now  for  the  still  more 
amusing  sequel.  A  few  months  later  a  prisoner 
named  Constantine  was  before  the  Chancellor 
Sir  Thomas  More,  on  charge  of  heresy.  "  Now 
Constantine,"  said  Sir  Thomas,  '^  I  would  have 
thee  to  be  plain  with  me  in  one  thing  that  I 
shall  ask,  and  I  promise  I  will  shew  thee  favour 
in    all    other   things   whereof  thou    art    accused. 


68  OUR  BIBLE 


There  are  beyond  the  sea  Tyndale,  Joye,  and  a 
great  many  of  you  ;  I  know  they  cannot  live 
without  money.  There  must  be  some  that  help 
and  succour  them.  I  pray  thee  tell  me  who  be 
they  that  help  them  thus."  "  My  lord,"  said 
Constantine,  ''  I  will  tell  thee  truly.  It  is  the 
Bishop  of  London  that  hath  holpen  us,  for  he 
hath  bestowed  among  us  a  great  deal  of  money 
upon  New  Testaments  to  burn  them,  and  that 
hath  been  our  chief  succour  and  comfort."  "Now, 
by  my  troth,"  replied  Sir  Thomas,  ^'  I  think  even 
the  same,  for  I  told  the  Bishop  thus  much  before 
he  went  about  it." 

I  must  say  a  word  about  Sir  Thomas  More. 
Sir  Thomas  was  the  fiercest  of  Tyndale's  critics. 
He  did  his  best  to  write  his  translation  down. 
He  was  vigorous  in  punishing  all  who  expressed 
discontent  with  the  then  Church  order.  It 
would  be  quite  possible  for  an  unscrupulous 
person  to  represent  him  as  an  enemy  of  God 
and  a  persecutor  of  the  faithful — the  champion 
and  the  defender  of  a  worldly  and  unspiritual 
policy.  But,  though  this  might  be  done,  it 
would  be  a  gross  caricature.  More  was  a  man 
in  whom  almost  every  grace  and   virtue  met ;   a 


HOW  ir  HAS  COME  TO  US  69 

finished   scholar,   a  charming  friend,  an   upright 
statesman,    a    devoted     father,    truly    religious, 
deeply  devout.      He  went  to  the  block  without  a 
murmur  because    he  could   not   see   his    way   to 
concurring  in  Henry's  divorce.      From  the  point 
of  view  of  character  he  was  every  whit   as  great 
and  good  a  man  as  Tyndale.      But  the  two  men 
belonged   to    two    different    schools    of    thought. 
More  was  a  Churchman,  Tyndale  was  not.    More 
was  a  philosopher  who  had  grasped   the   idea  of 
the  Church   as   a  society  in   which   obedience  to 
authority,  and  a  waiting  upon  authority,  was  the 
first  duty.      Tyndale's  action  in   issuing  an   un- 
authorised translation  was  a  breach  of  this  first 
principle.      Tyndale's  mind,  if  it   had   ever  per- 
ceived  More's   point   of  view,   was   much    more 
dominated    by  a   sense   of   the   responsibility  of 
the  individual    to   God,    and    the  liberty  of  the 
individual  to  act  according  to  his   own  sense  of 
right  without  tarrying  for  the  consent   of  others. 
More  was  probably  willing  to  wait  upon  occasion. 
Tyndale  was  inchned  to  make  the  occasion.     He 
would  be  a  bold  man  who  would   say  that  either 
one  or  the  other  was  absolutely  right.      Some- 
where midway  the  truth  lies.      Happily,  we  are 


70  OUR  BIBLE 


not  called  upon  to  judge  either  More  or  Tyndale. 
But  we  ought  to  be  able  to  admire  both  men, 
and  to  learn  the  lesson  which  is  taught  us  by 
the  fact  that  neither  of  these  great  and  good 
men  understood  the  other. 

The  end  of  this  painful  life  came  to  Tyndale 
in  1536.  He  was  entrapped  at  Antwerp  by 
one  whom  he  trusted  as  a  friend,  and  hurried 
to  the  dungeons  of  the  Castle  of  Vilvorden, 
near  Brussels.  The  English  authorities  allowed 
him  a  while  to  languish  in  the  prison,  where, 
in  much  bodily  discomfort,  he  still  worked  on 
at  his  translation.  On  Friday,  October  6,  he 
was  led  out,  not  to  be  set  at  liberty,  but  to  die. 
He  was  to  be  burned,  but,  according  to  the 
more  merciful  fashion  of  the  Low  Countries, 
he  was  first  strangled.  His  last  words  were, 
"  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes." 

We  have  said  something  about  the  worth 
of  Tyndale's  version  as  English,  and  we  must 
not  forget  that  Tyndale  used  what  no  other 
translator  had  ever  used  before — Hebrew  and 
Greek  MSS.  The  MSS.  then  discovered  were 
not  anything  like  in  value  to  what  we  now 
possess,   but,   still,   Tyndale's   work  is  not   like 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  71 


Wycliffe's,    a    translation   of   a   translation,    but 
a  translation  of  the  original. 

''Lord;  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes." 
Such  was  the  prayer  of  Tyndale  in  1536.  In 
1539  that  prayer  was  granted.  In  every  parish 
church  stood  an  EngHsh  Bible,  and  its  pictured 
title-page  tells  its  own  story  of  opened  eyes. 
The  design  is  by  Hans  Holbein.  "  In  the  first 
compartment  the  Almighty  is  seen  in  the  clouds 
with  outstretched  arms.  Two  scrolls  proceed 
out  of  His  mouth  to  the  right  and  to  the  left. 
On  the  former  is  the  phrase,  '  The  word  which 
goeth  forth  from  Me  shall  not  return  to  Me 
empty,  but  shall  accomplish  whatsoever  I  will 
have  done.'  The  other  is  addressed  to  King 
Henry,  who  is  kneeling  in  the  distance  bare- 
headed, with  his  crown  lying  at  his  feet,  *  I 
have  found  Me  a  man  after  Mine  own  heart, 
who  shall  fulfil  all  My  will.'  Henry  answers, 
*  Thy  word  is  a  lantern  unto  my  feet.'  Imme- 
diately below  is  the  King,  seated  on  his  throne, 
holding  in  each  hand  a  book,  on  which  is 
written,  'The  Word  of  God.'  This  he  is 
giving  to  Cranmer  and  another  bishop  who, 
with    a  group  of   priests,   are   on   the   right  of 


OUR  BIBLE 


the  picture,  with  the  words,  *  Take  this  and 
teach ' ;  the  other,  on  the  opposite  side,  he 
holds  out  to  Thomas  Cromwell  and  the  lay 
peers,  and  the  words  are,  '  I  make  a  decree 
that,  in  all  my  kingdom,  men  shall  tremble 
and  fear  before  the  living  God,'  while  a  third 
scroll,  falling  downwards  over  his  feet,  speaks 
alike  to  peer  and  prelate,  'Judge  righteous 
judgment  :  turn  not  away  your  ear  from  the 
prayer  of  any  poor  man.'  In  the  third  com- 
partment Cranmer  and  Cromwell  are  distributing 
the  Bibles  to  kneeling  priests  and  laymen,  and 
at  the  bottom  a  preacher,  with  a  benevolent 
and  beautiful  face,  is  addressing  a  crowd  from 
a  pulpit  in  the  open  air.  He  is  apparently 
commencing  his  sermon  with  the  words,  '  I 
exhort  therefore,  that  first  of  all  supplications, 
prayers,  thanksgiving,  be  made  for  all  men, 
for  kings  — '  and  at  the  word  *  kings  '  the  people 
are  shouting,  '  Vivat  Rex,'  children  who  knew 
no  Latin  lisping  '  God  save  the  King,'  while 
at  the  extreme  left  a  prisoner  at  a  jail  window 
is  joining  in  the  cry  of  delight  as  if  he  too  were 
delivered  from  a  worse  bondage." 

We    may   well    ask  how  had   all    this   come 


HO]V  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US 


about.      The    frantic   fury  of    the    authorities   at 
the   incoming   of   an    English    Bible,    which    we 
saw  a  few    years   back,  was  the    sign    really  of 
a  weakening  opposition.      Men  argue  most  dog- 
matically  when    they  are   least    sure.      They  do 
it    to    fortify    themselves.       So    with    the    con- 
servative   party   in    the    Church  ;  they   stormed 
and    they  protested,   and    almost   instantly  they 
yielded  when  their  wrath  seemed  at  the  highest. 
The    steps    were    these.      The    very  year    after 
Tyndale's  imprisonment  Miles  Coverdale  brought 
out  the  Bible  which  bears  his  name.      This  was 
largely  indebted   to  Tyndale.      The  times  were 
altering.       Thomas    Cromwell    was    now,    upon 
the    fall    of   Wolsey,  the    King's   guiding   spirit. 
Cromwell,    the     vicar-general,    was     a     mighty 
master   of  diplomacy,    and    could   use    any   tool 
to  serve  his   end.      He  threw  himself  upon   the 
side  which  was  against  the  Church,  and  became 
the  patron  of  Coverdale  that,   through  him,   he 
might    wound   the    Roman  Church,  with    which 
Henry   had    resolved    to    quarrel.      Neither   the 
motives   of  Cromwell   nor   those   of   his   master 
will   bear  much  examination.      Our  only  duty  is 
to   relate  facts.      In    1537  appeared   Matthews's 


74  OUR  BIBLE 


Bible,  the  work  of  John  Rogers  in  all  pro- 
bability, who  was  martyred  in  the  reign  of 
Mary.  This  again  was  Tyndale's  work  revised 
by  another  hand.  In  1540,  Cranmer,  now 
Archbishop  of  Canterbur}^  had  set  his  heart 
on  having  a  translation  for  the  nation  at  large. 
Coverdale  was  again  charged  by  Cromwell  to 
see  to  the  work.  When  Henry  was  asked  to 
authorise  it,  "Well,"  said  he,  "but  are  there 
any  heresies  maintained  thereby  ? "  ^'  No," 
replied  the  promoters.  "Then,  in  God's  name," 
said  the  King,  "let  it  go  forth  among  our 
people."  This  Bible  was  in  fact  a  revision  of 
Matthews's  Bible  by  Coverdale,  and  as  Matthews's 
Bible  was  really  based  upon  Tyndale's,  this, 
"the  Great  Bible"  of  1540,  was  substantially 
our  hero  Tyndale's  once  proscribed  work.  The 
martyr  had  triumphed.  His  dearest  wish  was 
granted.  On  the  title-page,  as  having  "over- 
seen "  the  work,  stands  the  name  of  Cuthbert, 
Bishop  of  Durham.  Strange  irony !  Who 
was  he  ^  Cuthbert  Tonstal  who,  erewhile 
Bishop  of  London,  had  laboured  so  hard  to 
destroy  what  now  he  was  promoting. 

In    the    following  year,    1541,    came   the   fall 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  75 

of  Henry's  great  minister,  Cromwell.  As  his 
scheming  head  fell  from  his  shoulders  the 
pendulum  swung  back  again  towards  the  Roman 
and  conservative  party.  Until  Henry's  death, 
in  1547,  there  was  a  time  of  suspense.  Gardiner 
and  Bonner  looked  sourly  upon  the  Bible,  and 
Tonstal  and  Heath  shuftled  out  of  the  fact 
of  their  names  standing  upon  the  title-page 
of  the  Great  Bible.  When  the  boy  Edward  VI. 
came  to  the  throne,  the  six  years  of  his  reign 
were  occupied  with  Prayer  Book  revision  and 
ecclesiastical  legislation.  The  Great  Bible  was 
still  the  authorised  Bible.  The  Prayer  Book 
version  of  the  Psalms,  with  its  attention  to 
rhythm  rather  than  accuracy  of  expression,  is 
an  abiding  specimen  of  what  the  Great  Bible 
achieved.  On  Edward's  death,  in  1553,  the 
reading  of  the  Bible  was  discouraged  by  Mary, 
though  the  books  were  not  destroyed.  Cranmer 
and  John  Rogers,  both  intimately  connected  with 
the  Enghsh  Bible,  suffered  martyrdom. 

In  1558  Elizabeth  began  her  reign,  and 
brighter  days  dawned.  The  Protestant  exiles 
came  back  from  Geneva  with  a  translation, 
the    fruit    of   their   sojourn,    which    became    ex- 


76  OUR  BIBLE 


ceedingly  popular,  and  superseded  the  Great 
Bible.  The  Geneva  Bible  again  was  more  a 
revision  than  a  re-translation,  being  chiefly 
based  on  Tyndale. 

One  more  stage.  In  1604,  King  James, 
lately  called  from  Scotland  to  fill  the  throne 
upon  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  summoned  the 
bishops  and  clergy  to  meet  him  at  his  drawing- 
room  in  Hampton  Court.  The  question  of 
Bible  translation  was  brought  up  and  par- 
ticularly pressed  by  the  Puritan  party.  The 
bishops  and  the  High  Church  party  were  not 
so  eager.  ''  If  every  man  had  his  humour," 
said  Bancroft,  Bishop  of  London,  "  about  new 
versions  there  would  be  no  end  of  translating." 
But  the  King  had  made  up  his  own  mind,  and 
he  was  not  the  man  to  let  his  wish  go  un- 
satisfied. At  that  time  three  different  versions 
were  in  use.  The  Great  Bible  of  Henry  VIII. 
might  still  be  found  chained  to  a  stone  or 
wooden  desk  in  many  country  churches.  The 
Bishops'  Bible  had  appeared  in  1568,  and  was 
supported  by  ecclesiastical  authority,  while  the 
Geneva  Bible  was  the  favourite  of  the  people 
at    large.      There   were  objections    to    all  three. 


HOW  ir  HAS  COME  TO  US  77 

The  Great  Bible  was  becoming  obsolete.  The 
Bishops'  Bible  commended  itself  neither  to 
the  learned  nor  the  unlearned.  The  Geneva 
Bible,  through  the  Puritan  bias  of  its  notes, 
had  become  the  Bible  of  a  party.  To  James, 
with  his  "  high "  views  both  of  Church  and 
Monarchy,  the  Calvinistic  and  democratic 
marginal  comments  of  the  Geneva  Bible  were 
particularly  odious.  The  work  of  revision  was 
set  about  in  a  most  thorough  and  business-like 
way.  Fifty-four  learned  men  from  both  the 
High  Church  and  Puritan  party  formed  the 
revision  company.  The  services  of  the  most 
competent  scholars  in  the  country  were  put  at 
their  disposal.  The  Greek  and  Hebrew  were 
carefully  studied ;  Bibles  in  Spanish,  Italian, 
French,  and  German  were  examined  to  ascertain 
their  point  of  view  in  different  places.  All  the 
previous  EngHsh  translations  were  made  use  of, 
and  the  expressions  therein  which  were  correct 
as  well  as  forcible  English  were  incorporated. 
Even  the  Rheimish  translation — a  translation 
made  at  Rheims  from  the  Latin  version,  for 
the  use  of  English  Roman  Catholics,  in  1582 
— which     contained     some     happy    expressions, 


78  OUR  BIBLE 


was  laid  under  contribution.  The  work  was 
finished  in  i6ii.  Its  style,  its  excellences, 
its  demerits  need  not  be  commented  upon  now 
— it  is  the  version  which  we  are  all  familiar 
with  from  our  childhood,  the  so-called  Autho- 
rised Version.  I  say  so-called,  for  there  is  no 
proof  that  it  was  ever  authorised  either  by 
ecclesiastical  or  lay  authority.  But  that  is  a 
small  matter.  It  was  evidently  intended  to 
take  the  place  of  all  other  translations,  and  by 
common  consent  and  usage  it  has  received  its 
authorisation.  Besides  its  intrinsic  merits  it 
has  a  merit  which  helped  much  to  its  general 
reception — the  absence  of  doctrinal  notes.  In 
previous  versions,  from  Wycliffe  downwards, 
the  passing  views  of  the  day  on  various  mattei\s 
of  importance  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Word 
had  been  inserted  in  marginal  notes.  The  after- 
thoughts of  theology  were  obtruded  into  the 
Bible,  and  the  Gospel  of  Peace  was  interlarded 
with  polemics.  The  Authorised  Version  presents 
the  Word  without  a  comment,  except  such  as 
are  purely  grammatical. 

Troubled  times  were  ahead.      "  Between  1640 
and     1650    came    the    terrible    shaking    of   the 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  79 


Civil  War,  the  execution  of  the  King,  the 
removing  of  the  Church's  candlestick.  But  in 
that  time  the  Authorised  Version  had  won  its 
way  to  the  acceptance  of  Puritan  and  Royalist, 
and  was  one  bond  of  peace  when  all  else  had 
gone.  King  and  Church,  the  time-honoured 
symbols  of  order  and  catholicity,  seemed  to 
have  passed  beyond  recall.  But  the  acceptance 
of  the  new  Bible  gave  a  spontaneous  testimony 
to  the  principle  of  order  and  catholicity,"  with- 
out w^hich  social  life  were  but  like  the  "  idiot's 
tale. 

Full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing." 


THE    LAST    TRANSLATION 


THE  LAST    TRANSLATION 

tHE  whole  history  of  the  EngHsh  Bible  is  a 
history  of  revision,  and  improvement  by 
revision.  Every  fresh  translator  looked 
over  again,  or  revised,  the  work  of  a  predecessor. 
New  helps  to  a  better  translation  appeared  from 
time  to  time,  and  each  new  help  was  turned  to 
account.  The  Old  English  and  Wycliffe's  ver- 
sions were  translations,  not  from  the  Hebrew  or 
the  Greek,  but  from  that  Latin  translation  called 
the  Vulgate.  Now  the  history  of  this  Latin  Vul- 
gate is  so  interesting,  and  bears  such  a  close 
parallel  in  its  circumstances  to  those  of  our  re- 
vision of  1885,  that  we  may  well  say  something 
about  it.  A  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into 
Latin  was  made  during  the  second  century. 
After  the  lapse  of  two  centuries  the  variations 
and  errors  of  the  text  began  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  students,  and  there  was  a  call  for  revision. 


84  OUR  BIBLE 


'*  It  happened  providentially,"  says  Bishop  Light- 
foot,  ''that  at  the  very  moment  when  the  need 
was  felt  the  right  man  was  forthcoming.  In 
the  first  fifteen  centuries  of  her  existence  the 
Western  Church  produced  no  Biblical  scholar 
who  could  compare  with  St.  Jerome."  Jerome  had 
just  come  to  Rome  from  the  retirement  of  his 
cell  at  Bethlehem,  and  at  the  request  of  Damasus, 
Bishop  of  Rome,  he  undertook  the  work  of 
revision.  His  work  of  revising  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  finished  in  385,  and  afterwards  he 
revised  the  Old  Testament.  The  way  in  which 
he  worked  was  this.  He  had  before  him  the 
various  differing  readings  of  the  old  Latin  Bible. 
He  took  the  oldest  Hebrew  and  Greek  MSS. 
then  existing,  and  by  them  he  corrected  the  old 
Latin  Bible,  and  at  length  produced  the  revised 
Latin  Bible,  which  in  process  of  time  was  called 
the  Vulgata  Editio — i.e.,  the  commonly  received 
edition — or,  as  we  phrase  it,  the  Vulgate.  But 
not  till  more  than  two  hundred  years  after 
Jerome's  death  did  it  come  into  general  use. 
The  work  of  Jerome  was  exceedingly  unpopular, 
even  with  men  as  learned  as  St.  Augustine. 
Why  was  this  ?      Because  of  the  strong  con- 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  85 

servative  bias  which  exists  even  in  the  most 
radical  natures.  The  new  version  meant  an 
effort  of  readjustment  in  the  mind  accustomed  to 
the  manner  and  wording  of  the  old  version. 
Many,  perhaps,  who  had  no  personal  objection 
themselves  felt  strongly  that  it  was  a  needless 
breach  in  what  was  customary,  and  a  cause  of 
offence  to  the  "  weaker  brethren,"  and  would 
break  up  with  terrible  effect  memories,  hopes, 
and  beliefs  which  in  some  minds  were  bound  up 
with  a  certain  form  of  words.  We  are  not  with- 
out an  instance.  St.  Augustine  wrote  to  Jerome, 
and  gave  the  instance  himself  as  a  sample  of 
what  might  be  expected  to  ensue  in  many  other 
cases.  In  the  Book  of  Jonah  we  are  told  (iv.  6) 
that  the  prophet  sat  down  under  a  gourd.  In 
the  old  Latin  version  this  word  was  represented 
by  cucurbita.  Jerome  thought  that  the  most 
accurate  translation  of  the  Hebrew  word  was 
not  cucurbita^  but  hedera,  and  so  translated  it. 
An  African  bishop  in  reading  substituted  hedera 
for  cucurbita.  The  surprised  and  angry  congre- 
gation nearly  left  their  bishop  to  himself  and 
empty  benches,  and  were  only  restrained  by  a 
promise  to  keep  the  wording  of  the   old   version. 


86  OUR  BIBLE 


^'  They  would  not  tolerate  a  change  in  an  ex- 
pression," said  Augustine,  "  which  had  been 
fixed  by  time  in  the  feelings  and  memory  of  all, 
and  had  been  repeated  through  so  many  ages  in 
succession." 

There  can  be  no  question  that  St.  Jerome's 
version  was  on  the  whole  a  more  correct  repre- 
sentation of  the  original  than  that  which  it  was 
meant  to  replace.  Unfortunately,  however, 
human  nature  is  often  inclined  to  think  more 
of  words  than  of  things.  What  Shakespeare 
calls  "  the  tyrant  custom  "  keeps  us  very  often 
from  acknowledging  a  really  useful  change,  just 
because  it  is  a  change,  and  very  often  not  the 
least  a  change  in  matter,  but  only  in  form. 
This  little  incident  is  worth  remembering, 
because  very  much  the  same  unreasonable  out- 
cry was  made  fifteen  hundred  years  later — per- 
haps some  of  us  took  part  in  it — when  our  latest 
revision  saw  the  light.  St.  Jerome  was  very 
caustic  in  his  comment  upon  the  prejudice  stirred 
up  by  his  noble  work.  *'  In  vain,"  said  he,  "  is 
a  harp  played  to  an  ass."  But  ''truth  is  the 
daughter  of  time."  Slowly  Jerome's  version 
won  its  way  to   the   front.      Constant   use   took 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  87 

the  place  of  cold  neglect,  and  admiration  the 
place  of  derision.  Weak  human  nature  even 
flew  into  another  extreme.  People  forgot  that 
it  was  a  translation.  "  It  is  the  version  of  the 
Church,  and  in  her  own  language,"  they  said. 
''  Why  should  it  yield  to  Greek  and  Hebrew 
MSS.,  which  have  been  all  these  years  in  the 
hands  of  Jewish  unbelievers  and  Greek  schis- 
matics ? "  And  so  the  Roman  Church  in  the 
year  1545,  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  decreed  the 
Vulgate  authentic.  They  decreed  that  it  should 
be  considered — albeit  a  translation,  and  not  a 
little  corrupted  by  lapse  of  time — a  correct  re- 
presentation of  the  original.  While  knowledge 
has  increased  and  given  us  means  of  arriving  at 
a  far  better  text  than  Jerome's,  it  is  still  the  only 
recognised  Bible  of  the  Roman  Church.  This 
is  the  history  of  the  Vulgate,  which  we  must 
remember  was  the  source  of  all  versions  in  Eng- 
land up  to,  and  including,  that  of  Wycliflfe. 

And  now  even,  at  the  risk  of  being  wearied, 
we  must  come  a  step  further,  and  see  how  in 
Tyndale's  day  there  was  a  better  foundation  for 
translation   than   the  Vulgate.      One  of  the  first 


88  OUR  BIBLE 


great  services  of  the  printing-press  was  rendered 
at  Alcala,  in  Spain.  Here  Cardinal  Ximenes 
published  an  edition  of  the  whole  Bible  in  three 
languages — Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew.  In  the 
Old  Testament  side  by  side  stood  the  Hebrew, 
the  Greek  Septuagint  version,  and  in  the  middle 
Jerome's  Latin  version,  the  Vulgate.  Those  who 
were  prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  Latin,  and  had 
suspicions  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew,  made  the 
grim  joke  that  the  Vulgate  in  the  middle  of  the 
page  looked  like  Christ  crucified  between  two 
thieves.  In  the  New  Testament,  of  course, 
there  were  only  two  columns,  the  original  Greek 
and  the  Latin  version.  Before  this  work  was 
published  a  printer  at  Basle,  called  Froben, 
wishing  to  be  first  in  the  field,  got  Erasmus,  the 
great  scholar  whom  we  spoke  of  in  our  last 
chapter,  to  edit  such  Greek  MSS.  of  the  New 
Testament  as  were  accessible  at  that  time,  and 
so,  in  a  measure,  forestall  the  work  of  Ximenes. 
The  news  was  brought  to  Alcala,  and  an  angry 
outburst  was  expected  on  the  part  of  the 
cardinal  at  the  sharp  practice  of  the  Swiss  prin- 
ter and  the  Dutch  scholar.  But  Ximenes  was 
too  great  to  feel  jealous.      He  answered  in   the 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US 


words  of  the  disinterested  lawgiver  of  Israel  : 
"  Enviest  thou  for  my  sake  ?  Would  God  that  all 
the  Lord's  people  were  prophets,  and  that  the 
Lord  would  put  His  Spirit  upon  them  !  "  (Num. 
xi.  29.) 

The  first  edition  of  Erasmus's  Greek  Testa- 
ment appeared  in  15 16,  and  the  edition  of 
Ximenes  (the  Complutensian  Polyglott)  not  till 
1522.  Tyndale,  the  first  to  translate  into 
EngHsh  straight  from  the  Greek,  used  in  the 
New  Testament  the  second  (15 19)  and  third 
(1522)  editions  of  Erasmus's  work,  which  first 
came  out  in  15 16.  ' 

And  now  we  pass  from  Tyndale  and  the 
provision  for  his  work  to  the  revision  of  161 1. 
Here  again  the  material  for  forming  a  correct 
text  has  increased  very  much.  Erasmus  had 
only  access  to  a  few  (four)  manuscripts  to 
construct  his  text  upon,  and  the  ones  he  most 
followed  are  of  a  late  type.  By  the  time 
King  James's  revisers  set  to  work,  not  only 
was  Greek  and  Hebrew  scholarship  in  a  much 
more  advanced  stage,  but  more  manuscripts 
were  known,  notably  the  Codex  Bezae  (D), 
presented  by  the  Swiss  reformer  Theodore  Beza 


90  OUR  BIBLE 


to    the    University    of    Cambridge,    and    repre- 
senting a  text  of  the  sixth  century. 

Now  let  us  come  to  the  year  1870,  when 
the  present  Revised  Version  was  projected. 
Materials  were  then  at  hand  which  had  been 
entirely  hidden  from  the  revisers  of  King 
James's  time.  The  three  oldest  MSS.  of  the 
New  Testament — the  Sinaitic,  the  Vatican,  the 
Alexandrine — were  ready  for  use.  Translations 
into  Syriac  and  Egyptian  of  the  second  century, 
and  representing  a  text  of  the  apostolic  period, 
were  at  the  service  of  Queen  Victoria's  revisers. 
The  science  of  textual  criticism,  which  teaches 
the  value  and  the  best  methods  of  dealing 
with  these  documents,  had  entirely  sprung  up 
since  161 1  ;  and  the  scholarship,  also,  of  the 
Victorian  revisers  was  as  much  ahead  of  that  of 
King  James's  revisers  as  theirs  was  of  their 
predecessors. 

So  we  see  how  the  means  of  getting  a 
thoroughly  adequate  translation  of  the  Bible 
have,  bit  by  bit  and  step  by  step,  been  placed 
within  the  reach  of  the  English  people ;  and 
the   very   fact  of  the    ever-growing   material    is 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  91 

one  justification  for  the  successive  revising  of 
the  Scriptures.  Perhaps  it  may  be  noticed 
that  we  have  said  nothing  about  Hebrev^r  Old 
Testament  MSS.,  and  that  our  remarks  have 
been  confined  to  the  Greek  Nev^  Testament 
MSS.  But  some  of  us  will  remember  that 
for  certain  reasons  the  stock  of  Hebrew  MSS. 
has  never  increased,  and  never  can ;  but  our 
power  of  interpreting  Hebrew  with  precision  has 
increased  enormously,  and  justifies  the  attempts 
at  Old  Testament  revision. 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject,  let 
us  once  more  make  clear,  beyond  all  possibility 
of  mistake,  that  never  at  any  period  has  the 
meaning  and  import  of  the  Word  of  God  been 
obscured,  at  least  in  its  grand  outlines,  b}^ 
the  most  imperfect  translation.  Successive 
revisions  have  not  been  successive  paintings  of 
a  picture,  but  restorations,  each  more  successful 
than  the  last,  of  the  original. 

We  may  examine  now,  under  several  head- 
ings, the  principal  aims  of  the  revisers  of  the 
New  Testament  in  our  own  time. 

1st  Aim. — To  estabhsh  a  correct  text.  We 
saw    in    our  first    paper    that    errors   found    their 


92  OUR  BIBLE 


way    into     manuscripts.        To     ascertain     what 
was    probably    the    original    standard    text,    by 
forsaking    which     the     various     readings     have 
arisen,    is    a    necessary     and     important    work. 
This  work    had    to    be    done    by  a    careful    and 
scientific    examination     of    the     various    manu- 
scripts, versions,  and  quoted   passages  in  ancient 
Christian  books.      With   regard    to   the   state   of 
the   text   of   the    New   Testament,  the  words    of 
Bishop  Lightfoot  are  well  worth  recording:  ''No 
doubt   when   the   subject    of  various   readings   is 
mentioned,    grave    apprehensions    will    arise    in 
the   minds   of  some   persons.      But   this   is  just 
the    case  where   more   light    is  wanted    to   allay 
the    fears    which    a   vague    imagination    excites. 
....    I  can   only  state  my  own  conviction  that 
a    study   of    the    history   and    condition    of    the 
Greek    text   solves  far   more    difficulties   than    it 
creates.      Even    the   variations    themselves    have 
the    highest   value    in    this    respect.      Thus,    for 
instance,   when    we    find     that     soon     after     the 
middle    of    the    second    century   divergent    read- 
ings   of    a    striking    kind    occur    in    St    John's 
Gospel — the    old     Latin    in    chap.    i.  verse    1 8, 
reading,    '  the     onl}^    begotten     Son,'     and     the 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  93 

Peshito-Syriac  reading,  '  God  only  begotten  ' 
— we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the  text 
has  already  a  history,  and  that  the  Gospel, 
therefore,  cannot  have  been  very  recent." 

Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  differences  in 
the  text  used  by  the  last  revisers,  and  that 
used  by  the  revisers  of  i6i  i. 

If  we  turn  to  i  St.  John  v.  7,  we  shall  find 
in  the  Authorised  Version  that  passage  about 
"the  three  that  bear  record  in  Heaven,  the 
Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost."  Now, 
there  is  no  MS.  authority  of  any  moment  for 
the  words  which  crept  into  the  text  of  some 
old  Latin  MSS.  The  words  were  originally 
merely  a  pious  comment,  a  gloss,  upon  the 
three  witnesses  which  St.  John  does  really 
name — the  Spirit,  the  Water,  and  the  Blood. 
Tyndale,  Coverdale,  and  the  Great  Bible  all 
place  the  words  in  brackets,  and  mark  their 
peculiarity  by  a  different  type.  For  some 
reason  they  are  admitted  into  the  Authorised 
Version  as  part  of  the  original  text.  Now, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity  is  quite 
independent  of  the   three  witnesses  of  St.  John, 


94  OUR  BIBLE 


and  to  repudiate,  as  the  Revised  Version 
does  by  omitting  the  words,  the  testimony  of 
three  false  witnesses,  is  a  real  service  to  the 
cause  of  truth. 

Again,  the  last  twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark 
are,  in  all  probability,  not  by  the  same  hand 
that  wrote  the  Gospel.  In  the  Vatican  MS. 
a  space  is  left  at  the  end  of  the  Gospel  (verse 
8),  as  though  the  scribe  knew  of  the  later 
ending,  but  was  not  certain  as  to  whether  it 
had  a  right  to  be  included.  The  Revised  Ver- 
sion gives  the  last  twelve  verses,  but  separates 
them,  and  thus  gives  a  hint  that  the  verses  in 
question  did  not  originally  form  an  integral 
part  of  the  Gospel.  Likewise  the  first  eleven 
verses  of  St.  John  viii.,  and  verse  53  of  chapter 
vii.,  are  printed  in  the  Revised  Version  in  a 
ivay  which  warns  us  that  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  story  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery  was  not  originally  part  of  the  Gospel. 
Neither  one  passage  nor  the  other  is  without 
its  historical  value.  Both  probably  present 
a  true  tradition,  but  a  careful  examination 
of  MSS.  denies  them  equal  manuscript  stand- 
ing with  the  rest  of  the  narrative. 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  95 

There  are,  of  course,  other  cases  where 
single  words  and  phrases  in  the  text  used  by 
the  revisers  of  161 1  have  to  be  altered  in 
accordance  with  the  evidence  which  fresh 
witnesses  since  that  day  have  brought  to 
light.  But  taken  altogether,  the  changes  are 
not  very  many,  and  the  number  of  changes  of 
importance  is  much  less.  This  must  be  re- 
assuring. It  means  that  a  most  searching  light 
has  been  thrown  from  many  sides  ;  that  the 
text  of  the  New  Testament  has  been  subjected 
to  an  extremely  critical  analysis ;  and  the  result 
is  that  we  find  that  the  text  of  the  Authorised 
Version,  though  incorrect  in  many  particulars, 
does  yet  convey  most  perfectly  the  spirit  of 
Christ  and  His  apostles,  and  the  outHne  of 
historical  fact ;  and  we  know  that  when  we 
turn  to  the  Revised  Version  we  have  as  near 
an  approach  as  it  is  possible  to  get  in  a  trans- 
lation to  the  very  wording  of  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament. 

2nd  Aim. — To  keep  one  and  the  same  English 
word  as  the  equivalent  of  one  and  the  same 
Greek  word.  The  Revisers  of  161 1  often  used 
different    English    words   as   translations   of  the 


96  OUR  BIBLE 


same  Greek  word.  We  may  quote  an  instance, 
I  Cor.  xi.  29-34.  Ii^  this  passage  one  Greek 
word,  KpijLLa,  is  translated  by  no  less  than  three 
English  words — viz.,  damnation,  condemnation, 
and  in  the  margin,  judgment.  The  Revisers 
have  chosen  one  word  judgment,  as  their  trans- 
lation, and  kept  to  it. 

Srd  Aim. — To  translate  different  Greek  words 
by  different  Enghsh  ones.  This  was  an  im- 
provement suggested  by  the  manner  in  which 
the  Revisers  of  161 1  sometimes  gave  one 
English  word  to  translate  two  different  Greek 
words.  In  the  older  version,  Hades,  the  place  of 
departed  spirits,  and  Gehenna,  the  place  of 
punishment,  were  both  translated  Hell.  In  Acts 
ii.  27-31,  it  will  be  seen  how  the  Victorian 
Revisers  have  benefited  the  reader  by  an  ad- 
herence to  their  third  aim. 

^th  Aim. — Greater  care  in  bringing  out  shades 
of  meaning  in  the  original.  The  translation  in 
the  Revised  Version  of  the  words  in  Acts  ii.  47, 
"  those  that  ivere  being  saved,"  in  place  of  ''  such 
as  should  be  saved,"  is  a  case  in  point. 

^th  Aim. — The  use  of  current  English  ex- 
pressions in  place  of  those  which  are  obsolete. 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  97 

In  the  course  of  nearly  three  centuries  it  is  to 
be  expected  that  words  will  change  their  meaning 
or  go  out  of  use.  In  Acts  xxi.  15,  the  phrase 
is  used  "  we  took  up  our  carriages."  In  King 
James's  time  carriage  meant  what  you  carry,  but 
now  it  means  what  carries  you.  This  illustra- 
tion will  show  how,  in  course  of  time,  a  word  in 
a  living  language  will  quite  reverse  its  meaning. 
The  words  of  the  Authorised  Version  in  St.  Matt, 
vi.  25,  ^^Take  no  thought  for  your  hfe,"  sound 
to  the  ear  of  a  modern  most  improvident.  But 
in  161 1,  to  take  no  thought,  meant  to  abstain 
from  distressing  worry.  The  Revised  Version 
modernises  the  obsolete  expression  and  gives 
the  sense  of  the  original  Greek,  which  counsels 
us  not  to  fume  and  fret  and  worry  about  our- 
selves.     "  Be  not  anxious  for  your  life." 

A  few  words  ought  to  be  devoted  to  the  work 
of  the  Revisers  of  the  Old  Testament.  There 
was  no  question  about  textual  emendation.  To 
use  the  words  of  the  Preface  to  the  Revised 
Bible :  *'  The  task  of  the  Revisers  has  been 
much  simpler  than  that  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment Revisers   had   before  them.      The  received, 

G 


98  THE  BIBLE 


or  as  it  is  commonly  called,  the  Massoretic  text 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scripture,  has  come  down 
to  us  in  manuscripts  which  are  of  no  great 
antiquity,  and  which  all  belong  to  the  same 
family."  With  occasional  deviations  from  this 
text  on  the  authority  of  ancient  versions,  they 
have  followed  it  in  the  main. 

The  reader  of  the  Revised  Old  Testament  will 
find  that  generally  the  sense  is  more  clear  in  the 
new  translation  than  in  the  old,  and  especially 
he  will  find  this  to  be  the  case  in  the  prophetical 
books.  Compare,  for  instance,  the  Christmas 
morning  lesson  from  Isaiah  ix.  in  the  two  ver- 
sions, and  we  shall  find  much  greater  clearness  in 
the  new  translation.  Verse  5  is  not  without  its 
charm  in  the  old  version,  with  its  '*  For  every 
battle  of  the  warrior  is  with  confused  noise  and 
garments  rolled  in  blood,  but  this  shall  be  with 
burning  and  fuel  of  fire."  But  it  probably 
conveyed  quite  a  misleading  idea  to  the  reader  ; 
and  the  same  verse  in  the  new  translation 
reveals  a  striking  figure  which  was  hitherto  con- 
cealed. "  For  all  the  armour  of  the  armed  men 
in  the  tumult  and  the  garments  rolled  in  blood 
shall  even  be  for  burning,  for  fuel  of  fire.'' 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  99 

A  remarkable  improvement  secured  by  the 
new  version  is  evident  in  Dan.  iii.  25.  Instead 
of  the  astonishing  remark  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
"and  the  form  of  the  fourth  is  like  the  Son  of 
God,"  we  have,  ''  and  the  aspect  of  the  fourth  is 
hke  a  son  of  the  gods." 

It  was  on  February  10,  1870,  that  Bishop 
Samuel  Wilberforce  rose  in  the  Upper  House 
of  the  Southern  Convocation  to  move  for  a 
Committee  of  both  Houses  to  consider  the 
whole  question  of  a  fresh  translation,  and  to 
report  thereon.  In  prospect  of  another  revision 
there  was  a  little  stir,  both  among  some  of  the 
learned  and  some  of  the  unlearned.  Of  the 
latter  class  was  a  young  person  who  advanced 
the  opinion  that,  if  the  Authorised  Version  was 
good  enough  for  St.  Paul,  it  was  certainly  good 
enough  for  us  ! 

The  friends  of  the  projected  translation 
witnessed  in  the  opposition  raised  merely  a 
repetition  of  past  history.  The  story  of 
previous  revisions,  from  Jerome's  days  down- 
wards, led  them  to  expect  that  their  path  would 
not  be  quite  smooth.  But  in  the  Midsummer  of 
1870,  the  Committees   appointed  by  Convocation 


100  THE  BIBLE 


to  undertake  the  revision  began  their  work. 
Each  Testament  was  entrusted  to  the  hands  of 
a  specially  selected  company  of  scholars.  The 
National  Church  contributed  its  representative 
scholars,  and  the  Nonconformists  were  also  duly 
represented.  In  America  also  a  company  of 
Revisers  went  over  the  same  ground,  and 
communications  between  the  two  bodies  were 
interchanged.  So  the  Revised  Version  is  a 
common  work,  which  not  only  unites  English- 
men to  Englishmen,  but  unites  us  also  to  our 
distinguished  kinsmen  across  the  Atlantic.  In 
1 88 1  the  New  Testament  was  finished,  and  four 
years  later  the  Old  Testament  Company  had 
concluded  their  labours.  And  thus  the  year 
1885  marks  the  appearance  of  our  latest  revision. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the 
generation  which  was  bred  up  upon  the  old 
version  will,  as  a  whole,  be  satisfied  with  the 
new  translation.  But  the  fault  may  lie  not 
altogether  with  the  Revised  Version.  In  the 
^'  coming  on  of  time  "  it  may  meet  with  a  juster 
judgment  than  some  of  us  can  give  at  the 
hands     of    those    who    will     make    their     first 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  loi 

acquaiitance  with  the  Scriptures  by  its  means. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  with  them  its  obvious 
advantages  in  the  way  of  accuracy  and  clearness 
may  secure  it  a  wide  and  general  use  ;  and  it 
may  well  be  that  to  ears  not  preoccupied  with 
a  traditional  rhythm  and  verbal  music,  the 
Victorian  version  will  disclose  a  pleasant 
cadence   and   a   music   of  its   own. 


THE    COLLECTION    OF    THE    BOOKS 
OF    THE    BIBLE 


THE    COLLECTION    OF    THE    BOOKS 
OF    THE    BIBLE 

fEw  subjects  can  be  of  greater  interest  to  the 
student  of  the  Bible  than  the  history  of 
the  Canon.  The  word  "Canon"  means 
originally  a  rule  or  measuring- rod.  "  It  was 
applied  in  the  Church  to  the  brief  creed  or 
summary  of  Christian  truth,  which,  in  somewhat 
varying  form,  as  early  as  the  closing  period  of 
the  second  century,  was  recognised  as  including 
the  essentials  of  the  common  faith — the  regula 
ftdeiy  as  it  was  called.  The  word  '  Canon '  was 
first  used  to  designate  the  Holy  Scriptures,  in 
the  fourth  century,  by  the  celebrated  Alexandrian 
Father,  Athanasius,  who  speaks  of  this  definite 
body  of  writings  as  '  canonised,'  that  is,  as 
accepted  ;  this  acceptance  being  a  part  of  the 
Canon  or  rule  of  faith.  Subsequently  '  Canon  ' 
acquired  the  sense  which  it  now  holds,  and  was 
used   by  the   Latin   Fathers  to  denote  the  books 


io6  OUR  BIBLE 


which,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  regulate 
Christian  belief  and  teaching."  The  question 
with  which  we  will  start  is  this — What  was  the 
principle  and  what  the  time  of  the  formation  of 
the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  ?  There  is  a 
fantastic  mediaeval  legend  to  the  effect  that  the 
books  which  now  form  the  New  Testament  were 
miraculously  sorted  out  from  a  considerable 
number  of  other  similar  writings.  The  scene  of 
the  supposed  miracle  was  the  church  of  Nicaea, 
at  the  time  of  the  session  of  the  first  Ecumenical 
Council  in  325  a.d.  It  was  alleged  that  a  varied 
assortment  of  Christian  literature  lay  under  the 
altar  until  all  doubt  about  the  Canon  was 
instantaneously  ended  by  the  genuine  books 
leaping  of  their  own  accord  on  to  the  holy  table, 
leaving  the  writings  now,  ipso  facto,  declared 
uncanonical,  below. 

Most  of  us  will  dismiss  this  account  of  the 
formation  of  the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament 
with  an  incredulous  smile.  And  yet  we  might 
not  all  be  able  to  tell  the  true  story.  So  let  us 
try  to  get  the  right  version  of  the  story  truly 
and  simply  stated.  There  seems  to  have  been 
no  attempt  at  a  collection  of  apostolic  writings  in 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  107 

the  apostolic  age.  While  no  doubt  these 
writings  were  highly  valued,  there  was  some- 
thing more  highly  valued  still,  and  that  was 
the  oral  teaching  of  the  apostles  themselves. 
While  that  could  still  be  had  the  writings  of 
the  founders  of  the  Church  filled  a  secondary 
place.  But  when  the  second  century  began 
to  dawn,  and  the  last  of  the  apostles,  St.  John, 
had  gone  to  God,  the  Church  entered  into 
a  fresh  experience.  Upon  the  Fathers  of  the 
sub-apostolic  age,  holy  and  spiritual  though 
they  were,  there  rested  not  the  same  measure 
of  spiritual  power  as  upon  their  immediate 
predecessors.  The  doctrines  of  the  apostles 
were  called  in  question  by  some,  and  by 
some  explained  in  a  different  sense  to  that 
which  had  been  given  at  the  first.  It  is 
true  that  this  had  happened  in  the  apostolic 
age  as  well,  but  then  there  were  the  Masters 
in  the  New  Israel  present,  who  could  speak 
with  peculiar  authority.  Now  they  were  no 
more,  and  what  had  had  only  a  secondary 
importance  in  their  lifetime,  now  was  felt  to 
have  a  primary  importance.  The  writings  of 
the  apostolic   age   became   of  exceeding  interest 


io8  OUR  BIBLE 


and  practical  value,  and  in  the  second  century 
we  get  the  first  attempts  at  forming  a  col- 
lection of  the  writings  of  the  first  age.  The 
necessary  qualification  for  any  writing  which 
was  to  go  to  make  up  this  collection  was 
its  apostolicity.  Was  it  written  by  an  apostle 
or  under  his  direction  or  his  influence  ?  This 
seems  to  have  been  the  nature  of  the  criterion. 
The  use  of  this  criterion  did  not  at  once 
yield  quite  the  same  results.  There  are  three 
collections  of  apostolic  writings,  which  seem 
to  have  been  in  use  at  the  close  of  the 
second  century.  One  was  that  in  use  by 
the  Syrian  Christians.  This  seems  to  have 
contained  what  is  found  in  our  Canon  with 
the  exception  of  the  Second  and  Third  Epistles 
of  St.  John,  Second  Epistle  of  St.  Peter, 
St.  Jude,  and  Revelations.  If  we  pass  to 
the  North  African  Church  of  the  same  period, 
we  find  the  books  of  our  Canon  in  use  with 
the  exception  this  time  of  St.  James,  and 
Second  St.  Peter.  The  third  collection  of 
books,  which  was  in  use  in  the  Western 
portion  of  the  Church,  presents  us  with  a 
similar  problem.      And   what   is   this    problem  ? 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  109 

It  is  this  :  how  is  it  that  in  different  portions 
of  the  Church  in  the  second  century  opinions 
differed  as  to  what  writings  were  of  apostoHc 
authority  and  what  were  not  ?  The  answer 
to  the  problem  seems  to  be  this  :  the  proper 
limitations  of  the  Canon  were  not  arrived 
at  formally  by  the  action  of  a  particular 
council  at  one  particular  time.  They  were 
arrived  at  informally  and  experimentally  at 
the  end  of  four  centuries.  Councils  may 
have  ratified  the  New  Testament  Canon,  but 
they  did  not  form  it.  It  was  formed  by 
the  judgment  of  different  generations  and 
different  portions  of  the  Church  interacting 
upon  one  another.  Hence  it  is  easy  to  see 
how,  for  instance,  in  the  second  century, 
differences  of  opinion  existed  about  the  limita- 
tions of  the  New  Testament  Canon.  Now 
let  us  pass  to  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  hear  the  interesting  information 
which  Eusebius  has  to  give  us  about  the 
question  of  the  Canon  in  his  day.  Eusebius 
was  Bishop  of  C^sarea,  in  Palestine,  and 
completed  his  famous  ecclesiastical  history  just 
before    the    meeting   of  the    Nicene    Council   in 


OUR  BIBLE 


325  A.D.  He  divided  the  books  claiming  to 
be  authoritative  into  three  classes.  The  first 
comprises  the  universally  acknowledged  books. 
These  are  the  four  Gospels,  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  thirteen  Epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
I  St.  Peter,  and  i  St.  John.  The  second 
class  comprises  what  the  historian  calls  dis- 
puted books — books  received  by  some  but  not 
by  all.  These  are  the  Epistles  of  St.  James, 
St.  Jude,  2  St.  Peter,  2  and  3  St.  John, 
Hebrews,  and  the  Revelations.  The  third 
class  Eusebius  calls  spurious,  and  these  books 
he  says  are  not  received  by  the  Church  at  all. 
Among  these  books  heretical  and  apocryphal 
writings  are  included,  such  as  the  Acts  of 
Paul,  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  the  Apocalypse  of 
Peter.  Thus  far  had  the  question  proceeded 
in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century.  The 
apostolic  authority  and  therefore  canonicity 
of  two-thirds  of  our  present  New  Testament 
was  and  had  been  generally  acknowledged. 
About  the  remaining  third  differences  of  opinion 
existed.  At  the  end  of  the  fourth  century 
St.  Jerome  and  St.  Augustine,  the  two  most 
learned  men   of  their  day,  accepted  as  canonical 


HO]V  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  in 

all  the  books  in  our  New  Testament  Canon. 
They  reflected  the  general  opinion  of  the 
whole  Church.  Differences  of  opinion  about 
some,  at  least,  of  the  disputed  books,  still 
existed,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  ever  will 
exist.  But  there  was  still  a  good  deal  to  be 
said  in  their  favour.  The  third  Council  of 
Carthage,  397  a.d.,  at  which  St.  Augustine 
was  present,  fixed  the  Canon  of  the  New 
Testament  at  its  present  Hmits.  But  it  must 
be  clearly  understood  that  in  so  doing  it  did 
not  anticipate  but  simply  followed  after  the 
general  opinion  of  the  whole  Church.  The 
decision  thus  slowly  and  carefully  arrived  at 
by  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  has  been 
occasionally,  as  for  instance,  in  the  case  of 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  Tyndale,  in  some  points 
questioned.  But  this  has  been  only  in  the  case 
of  the  disputed  books.  The  judgment  of  the 
earl}^  Church  we  may  say  has  approved  itself  in 
the  matter  of  the  New  Testament  Canon  to  all 
subsequent  ages  of  the  Church. 

There  are  two  points  which  arise  out  of  the 
foregoing  statements  about  which  a  few  words 
should      be      said.       We     remarked     that     the 


112  OUR  BIBLE 


criterion  by  which  writings  which  claimed 
canonicity  were  tested  was  their  evidence  of 
being  written  by  apostles,  or  under  their 
direction  or  influence.  The  Gospels  of  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  John,  the  letters  of  St.  Paul, 
St.  Peter,  St.  James,  and  St.  John,  among  other 
New  Testament  scriptures,  establish  their  claim 
to  be  written  by  apostles.  But  it  is  not 
claimed  that  the  Gospels  of  St.  Luke  and  St. 
Mark,  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  were  written  by  apostles,  but 
these  are  admitted  as  being  written  by  men  who 
were  under  their  immediate  direction  or 
influence.  Now,  this  latter  test  was  no  doubt 
difficult  to  apply.  The  Epistle  of  Clement, 
the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  and  the  Shepherd  of 
Hermas,  were  valued  not  only  for  their  own 
worth,  but  because  the  writers  were  believed  to 
have  been  in  close  touch  with  the  apostles.  In 
the  early  Church,  the  author  of  the  Epistle 
of  Clement  was  often  identified  with  St.  Paul's 
fellow-labourer  of  that  name  mentioned  in 
Phil.  iv.  3.  The  writer  of  the  Shepherd  was 
understood  to  be  the  Hermas  greeted  by 
St.  Paul    in    Romans    xvi.  14  ;    and    the   Epistle 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US 


of  Barnabas  was  considered  to  be  the  work 
of  none  other  than  that  native  of  Cyprus  who 
at  one  time  befriended  St.  Paul,  and  at  another 
time  quarrelled  with  him.  To  all  these  writings 
the  Fathers  of  the  second  and  third  centuries 
refer  with  profound  veneration  ;  and  at  least  we 
know  that  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  was 
regarded  by  Irenaeus  as  inspired,  and  was 
placed  upon  the  same  level  as  our  canonical 
books.  It  was  evidently  customary  to  read 
them  in  public  service,  for  we  find  them 
bound  up  with  ancient  MSS.  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  writings  of  Hermas  and 
Barnabas,  for  instance,  are  found  in  the 
Sinaitic  MSS.  of  the  fourth  century.  Now, 
we  know  that  writers  who  wrote  under  apostoHc 
direction,  like  St.  Mark  or  St.  Luke,  or  under 
evident  apostolic  influence,  like  the  writer  of  the 
Hebrews,  had  their  works  admitted  into  the 
Canon.  For  some  time,  at  least,  it  was  felt 
that  this  principle  justified  the  high  place  which 
was  given  to  these  three  writings  of  which  we 
are  speaking.  Clement  may  have  come  into 
contact  with  the  apostles,  and  it  was  believed 
that  the    Hermas  and    Barnabas  of  the   apostolic 

H 


114  OUR  BIBLE 


age  were  the  veritable  authors  of  the  works 
bearing  their  name.  But  it  was  not  on  this 
ground  alone  that  the  writings  in  question  found 
such  great  acceptance.  Their  intrinsic  w^orth,  as 
it  seemed  to  the  early  Church,  quite  as  much 
promoted  them  to  honour.  But  this  feehng 
apparently  changed  in  course  of  time.  Before 
the  fixing  of  the  Canon  in  the  fourth  century, 
both  on  critical  grounds  and  on  spiritual  grounds, 
it  seemed  that  they  could  hardly  aspire  so  high 
as  had  at  first  been  thought,  and  we  do  not 
find  them  then  or  later  in  the  position  of 
eminence  that  they  once  held.  And  here, 
incidentally,  we  may  observe  with  gratitude  the 
Providence  which  made  the  determination  of  the 
Canon  a  work  of  long  deliberation.  It  is  a 
satisfaction  to  us  to  see  what  we  believe  to  be 
the  wholesome  instinct  of  an  early  age,  which 
refused  to  draw  the  lines  of  the  Canon  too 
rigidly,  and  the  equally  wholesome  instinct  of 
a  somewhat  later  age,  which  could  discern 
a  much  lower  degree  of  edification  in  St. 
Clement's  letter  to  Corinth  than  in  St.  Paul's 
letters  to  that  Church ;  and  which  refused 
the    Epistle    of    Barnabas     and     the    Shepherd 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  115 

of     Hermas    a    permanent    place    in    the     New 
Testament. 

But  there  is  another  question  of  interest 
attached  to  the  subject  of  ihe  collection  of  the 
New  Testament  Books.  Occasionally  we  hear 
about  gospels  other  than  those  four  which  every 
one  knows.  What  are  these  other  gospels  ? 
Now,  we  only  have  to  turn  to  the  opening  words 
of  St.  Luke's  Gospel  to  have  the  best  warrant 
for  believing  that  our  four  Gospels  are  not  the 
only  gospels  which  have  ever  existed.  "  Many 
have  taken  in  hand  " — St.  Luke  tells  the  "  most 
excellent  Theophilus  " — "  to  set  forth  in  order  a 
declaration  of  those  things  which  are  most  surely 
believed  among  us."  One  can  easily  understand 
how  the  multiplying  of  gospels  would  come 
about.  A  great  many  people  would  have  their 
story  to  tell  about  Jesus  at  first  hand.  It  was 
chiefly  the  story  of  three  years,  and  not  a  few 
would  have  come  into  contact  with  Him,  both 
in  Galilee  and  at  Jerusalem,  during  the  feast. 
Such  people  one  can  imagine  attending  the  apos- 
tolic preachings,  and  finding  their  story  confirmed, 
and  gleaning  information  with  which  they  filled 
in  the  gaps  in  their  own  story.      A  time  came — 


ti6  OUR  BIBLE 


probably  about  thirty-five  years  after  the 
Ascension — when  written  gospels,  under  apos- 
toHc  authority,  were  found  advisable.  Probably 
shortly  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  (a.d.  70),  the 
original  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  in  Aramaic,  was 
issued,  and,  shortly  after  the  year  70,  St.  Mark 
and  St.  Luke  appeared  ;  and  at  the  close  of  the 
first  century  came  St.  John's  Gospel.  It  seems 
probable  that  these  gospels,  as  they  appeared, 
received  a  peculiar  recognition.  And  this  was 
the  case  not  because  the  apostolic  gospels  were 
considered  inspired,  and  the  others  uninspired, 
but  because  one  had  an  official  sanction  which 
the  others  had  not.  What  has  become  of  these 
early  unofficial  gospels  it  is  impossible  to  say  ; 
probably  no  one  cared  to  keep  them  in  memory 
if  they  were  oral,  or  in  manuscript  if  they  were 
written.  The  canonical  Gospels  went  over  the 
same  ground,  and  went  over  it  better.  But  in 
the  second  century,  and  subsequent  centuries, 
the  tendency  to  write  unauthorised  gospels  had 
not  diminished,  while  the  motive  had  deteriorated. 
The  result  is  a  great  mass  of  literature  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  apocryphal  gospels.  Now, 
these  gospels  are  based  upon,  or  imply  a  know- 


HOJV  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  117 

ledge  of,  the  existence  of  either  the  canonical 
Gospels  or  some  other  gospel  of  the  first  age. 
Their  object  is  not  to  supplant  such  accounts, 
but  to  supplement  them,  ''to  embroider  with 
legend  the  simpler  narrative." 

One  of  the  oldest  of  the  apocryphal  gospels 
which  we  have  in  an  entire  form  is  that  called 
Protevangehum,  or  Gospel  of  St.  James,  and  it 
seems  to  belong  to  the  second  century,  and  pro- 
bably to  the  middle  of  that.  It  is  very  explicit 
about  those  things  which  the  Gospels  of  the 
Canon  do  not  touch  on.  According  to  this 
authority  Joachim  and  Anna  are  the  names  of 
the  parents  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  There  is  a 
great  deal  about  the  early  years  of  the  mother  of 
the  Lord  ;  the  marriage  of  the  Virgin  with 
Joseph  is  brought  about  by  a  miraculous  inter- 
vention. The  story  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  is  told 
as  in  St.  Luke,  but  with  the  addition  of  not  a 
few  portents.  The  document  ends  with  the 
massacre  of  the  Innocents,  from  which  John  the 
Baptist  is  delivered  by  means  of  a  mountain 
opening  and  receiving  him  and  his  mother. 
And  just  as  the  mystery  of  Christ's  birth  and 
the  reserve  of   the    Evangelists   stimulated   the 


OUR  BIBLE 


writings  of  apocryphal  gospels  of  the  infancy,  so 
/  the  mystery  of  Christ's  death  and  passing  into 
Xthe  spirit  world,  whereon  the  Gospels  leave  so 
^  much  unsaid,  tempted  the  writers  of  apocryphal 
gospels  into  supplementing  what  was  left  incom- 
plete. The  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  and  the  Acts 
of  Pilate,  forming  one  document,  tell  much  about 
the  passion  and  crucifixion  which  the  Gospels 
of  the  Canon  tell,  and  also  a  good  deal  which 
they  do  not.  The  latter  part  of  the  Gospel 
of  Nicodemus  touches  upon  the  details  of  our 
Lord's  descent  to  Hades  between  His  death 
and  resurrection  ;  of  His  breaking  the  gates 
of  brass,  and  releasing  and  taking  up  to 
Paradise  the  souls  of  Adam,  John  the  Baptist, 
and  many  holy  men  of  the  earlier  dispensation. 
Thus  we  see  what  the  nature  is  of  the  apocryphal 
gospels. 

They  really  add  nothing  to  the  knowledge  of 
Christ's  character,  teaching,  and  life,  which  we 
gather  from  the  canonical  Gospels — save  portents 
and  wonders.  Taken  by  themselves  they  give  a 
misleading  picture  of  Christ  :  He  appears  rather 
as  a  magician  than   as  a  spiritual  teacher.      The 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  119 

distorted  view  of  our  Lord  which  Moham- 
med had,  he  probably  owed  to  the  fact  of  his 
being  acquainted  only  with  an  apocryphal  gospel, 
and  not  the  canonical  Gospels. 

Most  of  the  apocryphal  gospels  belong  to  a 
later  date  than  that  at  which  the  Canon  was 
fixed  ;  but  one,  at  least — the  Gospel  of  St. 
James — does  probably  belong  to  a  period 
anterior.  That  such  a  gospel  or  gospels  were 
excluded  from  the  Canon  we  cannot  wonder. 
But  though  the  apocryphal  gospels  were  never 
admitted  to  the  New  Testament  collection,  their 
influence  was  long  felt  in  art.  There  is  a 
picture  of  Raphael's  which  treats  of  the  marriage 
of  the  Virgin.  There  are  various  suitors  pro- 
vided with  a  rod.  but  Joseph  is  chosen  because 
from  his  rod  alone  issues  a  dove.  In  Raphael's 
picture  the  disappointed  suitors  are  seen  break- 
ing their  useless  rods.  The  beasts  worshipping 
the  infant  Christ  in  the  manger  are  not  infrequent 
in  old  pictures.  Dante  refers  more  than  once  to 
the  breaking  of  the  gates  of  Hades  at  our  Lord's 
descent,  and  His  bringing  into  Paradise  the 
patriarchs  who  had  waited   for    Him.      In   these 


20  OUR  BIBLE 


instances,  and  many  others,  we  see  the  place  in 
Christian  art  which  the  apocryphal  gospels  made 
for  themselves. 

The  history  of  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment before  the  Christian  era  is  involved  in 
considerable  obscurity.  While  the  books  which 
form  the  New  Testament  are  of  one  age  only, 
those  which  make  up  the  Old  Testament  belong 
10  very  various  periods  of  time.  In  so  far  the 
two  Canons  stand  on  different  grounds,  but 
probably  the  principle  which  guided  the  forma- 
tion was  identical  in  either  case.  The  name  of 
a  great  teacher  attached  to  a  book,  or  the  posses- 
sion by  a  book  of  eminent  powers  of  edification 
and  the  ring  of  a  true  spiritual  tone,  gained,  in 
the  slow  process  of  lengthened  deliberation,  the 
position  for  the  book  of  canonical  authority. 
The  well-known  division  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures into  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Holy 
Writings,  help  us  to  understand  the  strata  which 
were  successively  laid  down,  and  which  ulti- 
mately formed  a  solid  whole  of  instruction.  The 
division  of  the  Law  corresponds  to  our  first  five 
books  of  the  Bible — the  Pentateuch.  It  is 
necessary  to  state  the  bare  fact  that   competent 


HO]V  IT  HAS  COME  TO  US  121 

scholars  differ  considerably  as  to  the  date  at 
which  these  books  took  their  present  form. 
Some  deem  them  to  have  attained  their  present 
form  immediately  after  the  death  of  Moses. 
Others  believed  them  to  have  assumed  their 
present  form  as  late  as  the  first  century  after 
their  return  from  exile — i.e.,  between  536  b.c. 
and  436  B.C.  Others  again  look  for  a  midway 
position  in  the  period  of  the  kings  before  the 
Exile.  It  must,  however,  be  understood  that 
the  two  latter  classes  of  scholars  admit  the 
existence  of  a  nucleus  of  moral  and  ceremonial 
law  dating  from  the  Mosaic  period,  which  v/as 
expanded  at  a  later  period. 

One  thing,  however,  is  clear — viz.,  that  the 
foundation  of  the  Canon  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Law.  To  this  was  added  a  collection  of 
writings,  the  Prophets.  This  included  (a)  four 
narrative  books — Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings. 
(b)  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  the  tw^elve 
minor  prophets  united  in  a  single  book.  The 
conclusion  of  this  portion  of  the  Canon  is  thought 
by  some  to  have  been  probably  between  300- 
200  B.C.  In  the  prologue  to  the  book  of  Ecclesi- 
asticus    in    the    Apocrypha,    the    writer    speaks 


122  OUR  BIBLE 


thus  : — ''  My  grandfather  Jesus  had  much  given 
himself  to  the  reading  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets  and  the  other  books  of  the  fathers." 
This  prologue  dates  from  about  132  b.c.  and 
was  written  in  Alexandria.  Besides  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  there  is  yet  another  division 
of  Hebrew  Scriptures  recognised,  vaguely  re- 
ferred to  as  ''  the  other  books  of  the  fathers." 
These  ''other  books"  are  probably  the  Holy 
Writings  which  form  the  third  division  of  the 
Canon.  According  to  the  common  arrangement 
in  Hebrew  Bibles  this  would  include — Psalms, 
Proverbs,  Job,  Canticles,  Ruth,  Lamentations, 
Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah, 
Chronicles.  This  part  of  the  Canon  is  thought 
to  have  been  concluded  about  105  b.c.  More 
than  a  hundred  years,  then,  before  the  Christian 
era  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  practi- 
cally settled.  It  only  remains  to  add  that  the 
New  Testament  evidently  assumes  a  definite  and 
compact  body  of  Scriptures,  that  Josephus  (born 
37  A.D.,  died  after  97  a.d),  the  Jewish  historian, 
speaks  of  our  Old  Testament  Canon  as  an 
established  thing,  and  that  probably  the  Jewish 
synod    of   Jamnia,    near    Jaffa,    about   the   year 


HOW  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  123 

90  A.D.,  gave  official  sanction  to  what  had 
already  been  settled  in  practice.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  know  that  the  Jewish  Canon  too  had  its 
disputed  books — viz.,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles,  and 
Esther.  Ihe  pessimistic  tone  of  the  first,  the 
sensuous  imagery  of  the  second,  and  the  absence 
of  the  divine  name  in  the  third,  were  no  doubt 
felt  as  difficulties,  but  finally  the  objections  seem 
to  have  been  overcome. 

There  remains  one  more  topic  which  must  be 
slightly  touched  upon.  So  far  we  have  been 
deahng  with  the  history  of  the  Jewish  Canon  of 
the  Old  Testament.  But  there  is  a  history  of 
the  Christian  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  also. 
In  the  first  paper  of  this  series  something  was 
said  about  the  origin  of  that  Greek  translation  of 
the  Old  Testament  called  the  Septuagint.  In- 
corporated with  this  were  certain  other  Greek 
writings  which  mostly  were  penned  by  members 
of  the  Jewish  Alexandrian  colony,  and  chiefly  in 
the  second  and  first  century  befoje  the  Christian 
era.  The  books  are  familiar  to  us  under  the 
name  Apocrypha.  The  word  originally  means 
*'  hidden,"  but  acquired  a  secondary  meaning  of 
*'  spurious."      It  is  denied  on  good  authority  that 


124  OUR  BIBLE 


there  was  any  question  among  the  Jews  of  the 
canonicity  of  these  writings.  But  "  in  proportion 
as  the  [Christian]  Fathers  were  more  or  less 
absolutely  dependent  on  that  [i.e.  the  Greek] 
version  for  their  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  they  gradually  lost  in  common  prac- 
tice the  sense  of  the  difference  between  the 
books  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  and  the  Apocrypha. 
The  custom  of  individuals  grew  into  the  custom 
of  the  Church  ;  but  the  custom  of  the  Church 
was  not  fixed  in  an  absolute  judgment."  Under 
the  influence  of  Augustine,  the  Council  of 
Carthage  (397  a.d.)  adopted  an  enlarged  Canon 
which  included  the  Apocrypha,  ''  though  with  a 
reservation,"  and  wholly  unsupported  by  any 
representation  of  the  Greek  portion  of  the 
Church.  But  still  up  to  the  Reformation  period, 
distinguished  Fathers  in  succesiiion  championed 
a  pure  Hebrew  Canon,  without  the  Apocrypha. 
The  Romanists  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  pronounced  in 
favour  of  the  larger  Canon,  and  declared  the 
apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be 
worthy  of  "  equal  veneration  "  with  the  Hebrew 
books. 


HO]V  IT  HAS  COME  TO   US  125 

The  reformed  Churches — and  our  own  amongst 
them  —  decidedly  pronounced  themselves  in 
favour  of  the  pure  Hebrew  Canon.  But  the 
English  Church  does  not  absolutely  set  aside 
the  apocryphal  books.  It  does  not  use  them 
for  the  establishment  of  doctrine,  but  reckons 
them  useful  *'  for  example  of  life  and  instruction 
of  manners."  With  this  end  in  view  some  of 
the  week-day  lessons  in  the  Lectionary  are 
chosen  from  the  Apocrypha. 

We  have  now  seen  how  the  books  of  the 
Bible  were  collected  and  finally  fenced  round. 
As  one  thinks  of  all  that  might  have  happened 
in  so  difficult  a  task,  and  then  looks  at  what 
has  actually  happened,  it  does  surely  all  bespeak 
the  presence  of  a  guiding  Spirit.  In  the  varied 
components  of  the  divine  Library  of  Scripture, 
we  have  indeed  a  most  impressive  example  of 
the  ''  manifold  wisdom  of  God." 


INDEX 


^LFRic  of  Winchester,  48,  49 
Alfred,    King,   as  translator,   47, 

48 
Ancient  writing  materials,  32,  33 
Anglo-Saxon  Invasion,  the,  39 

Bede,  Venerable,  44-47 
Bible,  The  1 

Reading  of,    discouraged   in 

England,  56,  75 
Spread  of,  in  England,  71 
The  "Great   Bible"  author-   , 

ised,  74 
The  "  Geneva,"  76 
TheComplutensian  Polyglott,  ; 

88,  89 
King  James's  Revisers,  89 
The  Revised  Version,  90-97 

Cj.dmon.  41-44 

Canon,  History  of  the,  105-125 

Carthage,    Council    of,    and  the 

Canon,  in,  124 
Chaucer,  52 
Codex  A,  20 
„     B,  20 

,,     Aleph,  Discovery  of,  21-24    j 
Complutensian     Polyglott,    The,   ' 

88,  89  i 


Copernicus,  61 
Coverdale,  'j^^ 
Cursive  MSS.,  19 

Herodotus  MSS.,  27 
Hilda,  Abbess,  41-43 

James  (King),  his  revisers,  89 
Jerome,  St.,  84 

Luther,  61 

Massoretic  Text  of  Old  Testa- 
ment, 13 
Matthews's  Bible,  73 
MSS.    Hebrew    Old    Testament, 

13.  14 
Oldest  of  Septuagint,  17,  i8 
Greek  New  Testament,  19 
Cursive  and  Uncial,  19 
New  Testament,    anterior  to 

Fourth  Century,  25-29 
of  Herodotus,  27 
of  Tacitus,  27 
Monuments,  The,  and    the  Old 

Testament,  18 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  his  opposition 
to  Tyndale's  Bible,  68,  69 


I2J 


INDEX 


Nicholas  of  Hereford,  55 
Nicodemus     the    Stranger,      his 

transcription,  30 
Norman  Invasion,  Effects  of  the, 

^0-52 

Printing,  Invention  of,  12,  61 
Printers'  errors,  31 
Protevangelium,  The,  117 
Purvey,  Richard,  56 

Renaissance,  The,  60 
Revised  Version,  The,  89,  90 
Aims  of  the  Revisers,  91-97 
The  Old  Testament,  97-101 
The  New  Testament,  92-97 

Septuagint,  The  story  of   the, 
15.  16 
Oldest  MSS.  of,  17 

Tacitus  MS. ,  27 
Testament, 

History   of    the    Canon    {see 

Canon) 
Old  Testament,  modernness  of 
Hebrew  MSS.,  13,  14 
and  the  Monuments,  18 
Revised  Version,  97-101 
New  Testament,  Greek  MSS., 

19 

MSS.  anterior  to  Fourth 
Century,  25-29 

Translations  of  Second 
Century,  28 


Testament,  Transcription  of  Nico- 
demus, 30 

Revised  Version, 92-97 
Tischendorf,  discovery  of  Code.x, 

Aleph,  21-24 
Translations , 

^Ifric's,  48,  49 

Alfred's,  47,  48 

Bede's,  44-47 

Caedmon's,  41-44 

Celtic,  38 

Coverdale's,  73 

Matthews",  73 

Of  the  Second  Century,  28 

Tyndale's,  63-70 

Wycliffe's,  53-55 
Trent,  Council  of,  and  the  Canon 

124 
Tyndale,  life  and  times,  63 

Martyrdom,  70 

Uncial  MSS.,  19 
Oldest,  20 

Vulgate,  The,  83 
Dishke  to,  84,  85 
Declared  authentic,  87 


Writing,    ancient  material 

32,  33 
Wycliffe,  life  and  times,  53-55 


s   for,   < 


Ximl:nes,  Cardinal,  his  Polyglott, 


Date  Due 

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1 

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bzz — 1 

1 

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1 

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